The Gentleman and the Scholar
by zman123
Summary: When mysterious new pilot Mari Makinami Illustrious comes upon the scene, Shinji realises that the world will soon end without drastic change and vows to fix it by any means necessary. But the path to rebuilding, advancing and redoing won't be easy as Shinji must come to terms with how everyone he trusted and loved despite their faults, have all been lying to him. Shinji x Mari.
1. The poorest boy in Tokyo

Be Prepared.

Chapter 1: The poorest boy in Tokyo

_So be prepared for the chance of a lifetime.  
Be prepared, for SENSATIONAL news  
A shining new era, is tiptoeing nearer._

"Hah, I wish" the brown-haired boy still in his bed muttered sadly under his breath as the uplifting tones of a very talented singer rang out from the old and grey metal device that was his music player and one source of solace in his melancholic, lonely days.

It said something when a mess of buttons and switches attached to a heavy cube with a speaker and disk slot which he had picked up at a car-boots sale with his meagre savings, seemed closer to being a friend than the flesh and blood "colleagues" he, first child and pilot Shinji Ikari was forced to be in constant contact with.

He used the word colleagues in a very loose sense of the word as some of the actions he was sometimes forced to endure made the word "tormentors" much more fitting.

A very strong word, he knew, but perhaps the only one that could appropriately describe the people around him for what he could not help but see them for despite his best efforts to remain optimistic in his circumstances.

_And where do we feature?  
Just listen to teacher._

"If I do that then what do we need the angels for? I'll be bored to death before I even get to the battlefield. At least being ripped apart by an Angel would be quick…"

Not that being tortured and eventually killed slowly and painfully by one of those wretched abominations was a fate Shinji would have wished upon anyone.

But it certainly beat having to stand in front of his ungrateful superiors and listening to them rant on and on about how he was stupid, worthless and not worth the space he took up on earth despite all that he had accomplished.

Being a pilot for Mankind's most deadly technological terror was already no cakewalk, but the various other shenanigans Shinji had to deal with between each horrific fight somehow managed to take things from bad to unbearable.

His roommate who called him "stupid Shinji" threw every single chore in the apartment in his direction as hard as was humanly possible.  
These "chores" included Cleaning the entire apartment so that if there was even a speck of dust left anywhere, he had failed.

Cooking food for three, one of them a very picky eater who made those whiny baby Princesses from poorly made low-budget kids cartoons seem like beautifully behaved saints in comparison.

And rushing out in the dead of night praying to find at least one open store correctly stocked when a certain German redhead decided it would be a good time for some reason ,for an evening snack consisting of luxury food specifically in the style of her people.

She repaid the diligent male housekeeper's efforts in a very physical manner.

A manner which left an already wounded war veteran with yet another impressive set of bruises and cuts to add to his already towering stack of injuries.

Angels were fearsome creatures yet even they seemed to pale in comparison to the explosive hair-trigger temper of his roommate and fellow pilot Asuka.  
If only Shinji were a masochist, he'd be on the highest cloud of seven heaven living with such a roommate.

And as much as Shinji wished that were the case, it tragically was not.

And that wasn't even getting started on the long winded rants he still had to endure in that building designed for "learning" and "education" but where the one thing he learned was that most educators these days would regurgitate anything endlessly on repeat if they were given the price of two beers.

He was a pilot for the most-deadly war machine known to mankind, one of a few individuals on which the fate of the very earth hinged upon. What more could a simple set of whiteboards and textbooks teach him?

Ha, just listen to teacher…

_I Know it sounds sordid, but you'll be rewar…_

"Hey idiot, get your sorry ass out of bed and make me some breakfast" came the shrill and imposing call of Asuka Soryu Langley, her voice assaulting his eardrums like a hammer brought with great force to a pane of glass.

Speak of the devil and she doth appear, the pre-teen boy thought sadly to himself as he quickly twitched aside his blankets and hurriedly slammed his hand onto his music player's power button somehow lucky enough to not break it in the process.

Adrenaline in its purest form raced through his bloodstream as he quickly forced himself out of bed barely managing not to trip and threw on the first set of clothes he found on the floor.

The one day of the week he thought he might get some extra rest from school and his job permitting there were no angel attacks, and it had to be when Asuka felt like an early breakfast.

Just his rotten luck, he guessed.

He threw open the door and with one smooth motion bolted to the kitchen, not daring to make eye contact with the German redhead he knew to be already seated impatiently at the dining table. Her heated gaze of an indescribable magnitude of intensity digging into him like red hot pokers with every step he took.

It was all he could do not to keel right over from the toxic mixture of grogginess and nervousness as he wrenched open the fridge and grabbed out one ingredient after another, his reflexes after years as a makeshift housewife knowing exactly what to do.

A few seconds later and the fourteen year old boy quickly slammed the fridge door shut once again and quickly removed the cap from the bottle of oil he always kept at the ready before tipping a carefully measured amount into the pan which he had been fortunate enough to leave on the stove last night mostly likely as a result of exhaustion.

He knew what Asuka was capable of doing to him if even the slightest thing was wrong with the taste of her meals even if they had to be made on the fly by a still half asleep and overtaxed cook who was not usually used to waking up so early after an attack as extreme as the one last night.

And from his long line of battles each of which he'd only survived by the skin of his teeth, Shinji did not use the word "extreme" lightly.

He wondered as he continued his duty as five-star chef whether his roommate would batter him before the Angels got him first. With how even now he could see her rolling her fists together in great frustration and impatience, he knew that another beating was all but unavoidable at this point.

A loud snore from the bedroom of the one adult in the apartment signalled to Shinji that his commanding Major and the closest thing he had to a guardian had once again gone overboard with the "beverages" and wouldn't give a damn what happened to him if he was to once again incur the wrath of his fellow pilot as he often ended up doing despite his best efforts to cater to her every whim.

Not that Major Misato usually cared anyway else perhaps he'd long ago have escaped this terrible existence of being domestically harassed whatever peace he tried to make.

"Niceness was a weakness" he'd heard the German redhead reiterate time and time again as if it were a biblical teaching for all to adhere to lest they invoke the wrath of the heavens and not simply her own personal mantra.

And while Shinji had not felt particularly well-treated or properly respected by even his own father for as long back as he could remember, he could never come close to fathoming while anyone would think like this.

The world may have become little more than a Maelstrom of never-ending battles since enduring two "impacts" which had each been unspeakably tragic to say the least but surely this was no reason for the last survivors of mankind to behave badly towards each the constant threat of Angels growing stronger every day even as the world began to die off more and more quickly, any kind of infighting would be terribly counterproductive and even the most crazy idiot could see this.

"An eye for an eye only made the world blind" he had once heard his teacher say in his usual nasal monotone on a day where he was unable to even keep his head up from the desk.

It was those particular words which fired energy enough into Shinji to quickly jerk him from the deep slumber he felt so inclined to enter each time his teacher droned on and on usually about impacts which had been elaborated on countless times in previous classes.

For once in his life, school did not feel purely like a waste of time and energy where a broken record played on repeat again and again.

And as this memory inexplicably began to play itself with perfect clarity like a tape-recorder, Shinji begun to rub the sore spot where Asuka's last punch had connected with his face, narrowly missing his eye by little more than a centimetre and did his utmost not to cry.

"Just what have I done to deserve this" the boy sobbed silently so that his still impatiently watching aggressor could not hear him.

"Just what have I done to deserve any of this. What did I ever do to you but try to be nice to you and to be your friend Asuka. Do you really hate me so much for that?"

It took all his willpower to remain collected as he collected Asuka's now finished breakfast of German sausage and egg onto an expensive plate and added a large slice of Strudel pastry, the latter of which took a gigantic chunk from his meagre savings of his dead end job but was a staple in his picky roommate's diet that she could simply not live without.

With trembling arms which felt as if they could give way at any moment, the boy placed the hastily constructed meal on the table along with a glass of extra strong Milka Shockolade (another overly expensive foreign prestige food item) praying that this would be enough to quell her rising temper.

He really hadn't intended to get up so late but last night's fight had left even a veteran Eva Pilot like Shinji knackered beyond all belief and it had hurt just to move more than a few muscles this morning.

He was grinning nervously when a swinging fist came at his left temple and took him completely by surprise.

Shinji felt the wind being knocked from his very essence as flesh and bone of the human fist connected forcefully with that of the human skull.

Lights of many hues seemed to dance around his vision as the terribly shocked chef of an exotic and exquisite gourmet breakfast reeled back from such force delivered by his clearly dissatisfied clientele. His star customer at that.

"You were late this morning dummkopf. Bad start" he managed to make out through the horrible mist of confusion clouding his fragmented mind still trying to make sense of such ingratitude in the face of his hard work.

It wasn't like him to usually feel this angry what with how violent he had come to realize his roommate would always remain, but he had been forced to endure several muscle pains just to create this state of the art meal in the beaten up state he had woken up in this morning.

Surely some forgiveness for a little tardiness was in order with how she herself had been in the same battle as he and even seen the terrible blows his Eva and by extension him were forced to endure to finally bring down the horrid monstrosity which had ended up being more dangerous than anyone in NERV could have predicted.

Dr Akagi had predicted a victory chance of about one in four thousand, three hundred and fifty two point one three three seven and yet Major Misato had still shouted for Shinji and the other pilots to get straight to the frontline and give that "thing" everything they had.

The Angel had certainly given Shinji everything it had.

Which unfortunately had turned out to be a lot.

An awful lot.

The injuries had been serious enough to leave Shinji with a multitude of scars and bruises to make war hero Rambo seem healthy in comparison. This was the good part.

They had not however, incapacitated him enough to warrant any days off or a trip to the hospital.  
That was the bad part.

And they certainly gave him no sympathy points from a girl he had long held as his secret crush who he wanted nothing more than to impress and protect with all his might.

This was the worst and most heart wrenching part.

Knowing better than to speak up from years of living under the same roof as his assailant, Shinji only nodded meekly after uttering a barely audible sorry and gingerly backed away towards the kitchen counter where he pulled out two pieces of bread from a packet and placed them hastily into the toaster.

This would be the breakfast he would have to contend himself with after most of his salary had gone to purchasing the extraordinarily expensive cuisine that Asuka demanded daily from him.

Where her own salary was going Shinji had not the audacity to ask.

He knew better than to say anything to Asuka save for when she directly contacted him and even then he kept his sentences as short and to the point as possible knowing full well how easily her hair trigger temper could be set off.

He ran quickly back to his own room to brush his teeth and get some proper clothes on before the toast was ready as the daily paper that no one in the apartment ever properly read came through the letterbox.

News of the citywide newsprint company "TOKYO-3 DAILY"

News that couldn't have been less read-worthy if it had the words PROPAGANDA-DO NOT READ  
printed in big bold letters on the cover below the fine print which read FREE-DAILY.

And thus there was no one to catch today's headlines as Shinji and Asuka finished their respective breakfasts, put on their respective schoolbags and made their way best they could out of the apartment complex as a still very dizzy Misato who had not yet fully recovered from the painful effects of a large torrent of alcohol finally staggered from her own bedroom with an ear splitting groaning yawn and a grimacing smile.

**TOKYO 3 DAILY**

**NEWBIE NEWCOMER NEATLY NASHES NEFARIOUS NASTY:**  
**Surprise attack by surprisingly resistant Angel from northern suburbs soundly thwarted by newly recruited EVA pilot. Tokyo three astounded at display of such ruthless expertise from such an inexperienced recruit whose skilful intervention protected the lives of many.**  
**NERV top minds claim this dazzling display as "nothing short of a miracle".**  
**"The other more senior pilots and the more powerful EVA's were taken up dealing with another attack" says chief scientist Dr Akagi. "It's truly a wild stroke of luck how a pilot so new to the organisation and her equally new EVA powered through such an ordeal while making it look easy in the process".**

Shinji and Asuka walked side by side towards the school they were forced to attend together despite being veteran pilots of mankind's strongest war machines and mankind's final defence against the evil beings that were practically toying with the last remaining survivors of two gigantic worldwide explosions.

It was a tough job having so much responsibility over so many lives and a tougher job with how they, fourteen year old pre-teens were being forced into a harrowing experience that would have shaken most grown men and cold blooded killers to the bone.

All the explosions, all the blood and all the death.  
So much of it everyday and yet still the harsh shackles of "formal education" to get through every day.

It was as they walked that Asuka shot Shinji a nasty glare which served as a cue for him to quickly increase his distance between them lest he discomfort her enough to earn another nasty blow to the face.

He sighed painfully as he took a few steps back from her and put his eyes up to the sky, the one place he felt he could look at with the calmness and reassurance that he'd not be punched, insulted or browbeaten.

A beautiful canvas that would always be there for him to enjoy even when he screwed up time and time again despite his every attempt to please his superiors with every ounce of his being.

It was as the two continued onward despite the increased distance between them that a pair of bright teal eyes behind red spectacles peered at the duo from a sixth-floor coffee-bar.

The watcher, a lightly grinning sweet faced brown haired girl sat curiously watching the two more senior EVA pilots as she sipped heated extra frothy pumpkin Latte seasoned with extra toffee sauce.

Two of her superiors, she thought silently to herself.

And from the looks of this interesting exchange, one she could trust with her very life and the other that she could trust in about as much as you'd trust a hungry fox to guard a hen house.

Three guesses to deduce who was who, and the first two didn't count.

_Author foreword: _

_All critique and reviews welcome greatly._

_PS__: Is it just me or do the characters in Evangelion have a "colour coded for your convenience" sort of thing for determining whether a character __is kind/friendly or not._

_If you look at a large portion of the characters of the nicer characters like Shinji, Mari, Ritsuko and Sakura you would find that they all wear white clothing (or at least mostly predominantly white outfits) and have brown hair as well (including Ritsuko since her brown hair is dyed blonde)_

_Meanwhile meaner characters like Asuka and Gendo don't have white on their outfits and don't have brown hair (Gendo's is sort of black). As a bonus point, Yui Ikari who was Shinji's mother and supposedly a much nicer and caring person than his father according to characters who talk about her also had brown hair like Shinji along with a white labcoat and the Rei Ayanami clones who are all very nice to Shinji as well as very friendly people, are genetically modelled after Yui!_

_Does whether you have both brown hair and white clothes in Evangelion determine whether you are good or evil. Well then again white is the colour of purity._  
_This can't be just coincidence or can it?_**  
**


	2. Twelve years and a slave

**Chapter 2: Twelve years and a slave.**

_"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." – Declaration of independence abolishing slavery._

Lesson time. The dullest and least exciting part of the day and while Shinji was very much aware that this was a shared opinion among many, the fact he as an Eva Pilot would most likely have no use for any of the useless skills being droned out in a nasal monotone made that fact even more painful.

It would be laughable to think that the day would come when the world would reach a state where he and his fellow pilots could set foot in an honest business as normal people going about a normal day using their academic skills rather than their crazy skills to make an honest living.

With how close a shave the last attack had been for him, he was sure that he'd been eaten alive first.  
To Shinji if no one else, School was little more than a glorified slave pen.  
A slave pen designed to keep him shackled firmly to the system while his uncaring and oversighted father spent his days as the "big man" chilling up in that fancy suite he had all to himself and which Shinji was strictly forbidden to venture into at any time except when ordered to.

No long ass lectures for that lucky bastard.  
No massive load of assessments to worry or thick stacks of essays to work through or big books of questions the lazy teacher had never even properly explained in class to anyone.

It was all smooth sailing in his luxurious office in that big comfortable leather armchair while his son spent his days slumped forward onto the desk in this cold classroom which had turned down its heating to save on electricity bill due to the extraordinary tributes NERV demanded as protection fees.

And unbeknownst to even Shinji as the son of NERV's chief at this present moment, this fee of unbelievable size applied not just to everyone in Tokyo-3, not just to those living in Japan but to people from virtually all corners of the world.

Sweatshop workers who had worked their backs off harvesting crop in exchange for the meagre pile of coin that would earn their daily bread, cleaners who were unable to have serious respiratory illnesses treated from years of spraying cleaning fluid onto thick and dusty grime and even  
families who had nothing of value left but their children in lands where the slave trade was not only legal but a blooming black market of unforetold fortune for its higher ups.

Not one of them was exempt.

The fee of NERV that the completely oblivious Shinji would only discover later to an unfathomable magnitude of shock and terror, better known as the doomsday tax in reference to a historical phenomenon of the doomsday book kept by a certain King William the conqueror.

And at that very moment as the lesson dragged on and on with information Shinji knew he would never need, a dark haired woman dressed head to toe in rags in a middle Eastern insect infested slum screamed her heart out as her daughter was whipped into submission before being clapped in chains by a tall and immaculate moustached merchant with a grin that would drive the Cheshire cat to fits of envy.

The gems on his velvet robes sparkled in the morning sun as he handed the shivering girl to another equally smart man who lifted her with one rough gesture into the boot of a large gas guzzling truck already packed full of chained up and frowning children of all kinds of appearances and locked the doors not even giving the girl the chance to glance even once more at her now hysterical mother.

Perhaps that was for the best as the frightened girl's expression would have been one of fear and hopelessness in its most dreadful form. As young and naïve as she was, she had not been deaf to the stories that spoke of the accursed fates of children who ended their lives in the god forsaken place known only to most as "the slave pens".

The place where the children of the poor, were kept in order to work until they died. Some lasted longer, but none left alive.

The wealthy man did not grace the still crying woman with a reply as he took out a small handful of coins from a purse and threw them in her direction, one of them decking her squarely in the forehead.

And with another gigantic smile, the shameless slaver skipped merrily back into his truck with a hop skip and a jump.

A jaunty tune of cheerful whistling filled the dusty desert air as the behemoth of a truck revved up its engine before speeding away in a cloud of toxic fumes which caused the former mother who was still paralyzed with shock to gag and choke, spitting up a splatter of hot blood which stained the sand with a dark red puddle.

She was still mourning the loss of her beloved child that her uncaring husband had ruthlessly abandoned along with her when another tall but unsmiling dark suit tapped her shoulder, the smell of expensive cigar causing another choking fit to well up.

She did not need to look in the direction of the familiar debt collector as she fought back the urge to cough up more blood and with trembling arms scooped up the few silver coins which the slavers had left her as compensation for her beautiful and innocent little girl and held them out to him with her eyes closed.

That horrible emblem this evil demon turned man had the gall to wear with such audacity on his clothing printed so clearly for all who he dealt with to see.  
The letters NERV which the woman could never fathom the meaning of being as he was a foreigner, but which in her mind must have spelled out "bringer of darkness" or "devil" or "master of all things bad in this world" in whatever rotten country he and his other dirty brethren had come from.

The bulky suited man left the woman without any further words, his gun still pointed at the ragged woman even as he stepped slowly back into a sleek black SUV manned by another suited man.

He gave the woman another cold glare of disdain as the black windows rolled up and the car drove away.

The twelve-year-old raven-haired thin girl sat silently as the truck continued down the bumpy desert trail, staring blankly at the other children in the cramped and dark space not one of whom deigned to speak a word to her.

A few of them did their best to raise a smile at their new guest but none could look her in the eye.

All of them wore two sets of cuffs. One chained their skin and bone hands together making it impossible for them to even give the newcomer they deeply pitied a friendly wave. Another set chained their skinny legs together ensuring any escape attempt would end with little more than the audacious but stupid escapee falling flat on their face.

The newly enslaved girl did not need to ask the others how each of them had ended up here.

The shared silence and inability to make eye contact told her that their parents had too been sucked dry of every last trapping they had arduously scrapped around for until the last things of value they could sell to keep up with the mercilessly rising protection taxes happened to be a living flesh and blood young human being.

There was an old saying that blood was thicker than water. And then there was another saying that a loving parent wouldn't trade their children for the world.

The young and naïve slaves communicated through silence that these two comforting, but pointless motto's rang hollow staring down the barrel of a device that could kill with just one press of a button.

A device that turned those who could afford to wield them into gods among men. A device whose true name was known only to educated folk of a rapidly dying country. The device that her father back in his better days had referred to as a "gun".

The final question the raven-haired girl had as the truck finally pulled up and the sound of footsteps pounded louder and louder was whether to curse her mother for being a coward or to pity her for reacting the one way that she knew how in a terrible circumstance beyond either of their control.

And whether an unfairly widowed woman who had taken good care of her child only to sell her out the day the men in suits came deserved heaven in the afterlife or not.

Her pretty face had been the talk of the flirting boys in the school she had been lucky enough to get a place in. She wondered how much longer it would stay pretty for as the kerchunk of the truck door opening echoed throughout the truck boot followed by bright light flooding the darkness as strong arms pulled open the doors.

She had always been afraid of the dark, but now it was all she longed for.

It would be late afternoon when back in Japan, the numbers on Gendo Ikari's total assets section of his balance sheet shot up by yet another little bit causing the usually frowning downer to grin just a little for a little while.

Another day another payload.

One yen for his silly little son Shinji, his personal "hooker" Dr Ritsuko Akagi and his other silly little workers and nine hundred and ninety-nine for him and him alone.

It was good to be in charge.

_Author notes: As usual, please review. One problem that I always had with the Evangelion series was that they never showed us any of the outside world from Japan and I thought a little world building would be fun. But stick around. Soon Shinji and his faithful sidekick will free us from this awful tyranny and bring justice and fairness back to the world.  
Which sidekick you ask? You'll have to read the next chapter to find out!_

_Till then, have a good day and catch you next time. _


	3. The adventures of Kid Danger 2

**Chapter 3: The adventures of Kid Danger 2.0: Emergency! DANGER LEVEL 11**

_"You clearly don't know who you're talking to right now so let me clue you in. I am not in danger Skyler, I AM the DANGER!" - Walt "Heisenberg" to his wife when told he is in great danger. _

"Thank god you've come at such short notice Miss Makinami" sighed a middle aged scientist clad in a white lab coat and blue shirt, her faux blonde hair completing the exquisite Hollywood actress set of attire which made her the centre of her usually apathetic boss's attention.

"There's reports of another Angel attack on road AL2 OM1 by the sea. We don't know why it's here on such short notice after we've already taken care of so many others of its kind, but we're glad you're here."

"Of course, its my job, Dr Akagi" replied the brown-haired newest recruit of the EVA pilots. The soft and caring look in the pale blue eyes behind her red spectacles reminded the chief scientist of NERV of a much kinder woman who was sadly no longer among the living.

If only she were still here then maybe NERV wouldn't have thrown itself into the hellhole it was only digging deeper and deeper into.

The memory was so painful and Dr Akagi had to blink back tears before she could bring herself to reply with composure.

"Mr Ikari and Miss Langley have been contacted but won't be able to get here for at least a while because of heavy traffic caused by the mass panic of the situation, and Major Katsuragi hasn't shown up today due to…" a fleeting angered expression flashed past the Doctor's face and she had to bite her lip to keep her temper in check "Illness. You need to face this enemy alone Miss Makinami. And hurry, satellite imagery suggests that this Angel seems to be capable of growing in size and strength by absorbing the matter of most any object. Which is why we need to act quickly"

Really Misato, the doctor cursed silently in her mind. You just had to drink yourself drunk on such an important day when our new recruit has to take on such a difficult and high risk task without any support from her more senior pilots.

Some Major you are since I'm sure that will be really good for the discipline and morale of your units.

"Well. As they say, too many chefs spoil the broth. Don't worry Dr Akagi. I can do this." How the brunette's strong and confident smile never faltered as she said these brave words the scientist would never understand. If only this girl had been Shinji Ikari's roommate instead.  
It may have done wonders for that poor boy's psyche.

"Be careful. NERV has classified this mission as danger level 11 out of a possible 10 due to the highly destructive capabilities of the Angel. Do not take unnecessary risks" shouted the doctor as the girl rushed from the camera filled briefing room into the EVA hangars.

"Danger? Ha. I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger"she faintly heard the young pilot quip as the sound of her footsteps died away and the deafening racket of horrible explosions filled the room. The scientist allowed herself one of her few very rare light grins.

This girl had her priorities in order. This girl knew to keep her fights to the battlefield and only the battlefield. The battlefield was for battles and everyday life was for negotiations, socialising and jubilant celebrations and not fighting.

If only certain other imbeciles could get that glaringly obvious fact through their thick skulls, Ritsuko Akagi thought to herself as her teeth clenched and her brief smile vanished, and another big bang rocked the room.

Was it becoming fact and not simply her opinion that only brown-haired people with a fondness for white clothing were the only ones to be born with any brain at all these days?

The presence of Shinji and now Mari maintaining their kind and benevolent natures to always protect the innocent even as they were forced to be in constant contact with the many other cruel and vindictive assholes that sadly made up the majority of NERV.  
Poor children.

She really could write a hypothesis and a several page academic report about it all, she mused as she turned her attention back to the camera screens in time to see Mari Makanami clad in her expensive pink plugsuit (which the cheapskates of NERV had specifically commissioned as reward for her above average performance) striking a heroic pose with her EVA as it took step after step towards the hangar exit.

If only this really was just an action flavoured Anime movie, the doctor sighed with a bizarre sense of amusement as she continued to stare bemused at the camera screen.

If only this were but a scene from a fictitious work for the big white silver screen where Mari and Shinji were the lead mains and she was the fan-loved support character assisting the two young heroes in their fight against injustice, recognized for her ingenuity and the proud she did her late mother in continuing to smoothly run the science department even through the dark age of science that an apathetic and uncaring mankind had unwittingly brought about them in their short sighted avarice and greed.

It would be one heck of a film with one heck of a box office, Ritsuko whispered silently to herself lost in the reverie of a great fantasy that she knew to be both childish, immature and completely unrealistic the moment she had dreamt it up.

But even a woman of science could afford to dream. NERV could take her dignity away but no one could take away her dreams. It was a relief, small as it was.

Adrenaline trickled in a steady flow through her system as the fourth child and EVA pilot of NERV guided her EVA through the passage that led out the Hangar into the city in which the Angel was no doubt already causing a great deal of havoc.

They were getting stronger and more plentiful in number, Mari mentally noted to herself.

It was as if these abominations were beginning to evolve some sort of strategic intelligence with how another attack had been launched midday directly after the previous day's attack had been late in the evening under the cover of darkness.

A very effective change of tactics and timing to catch any target by surprise.

Lovecraft would have had a field day were he alive to see what she was seeing now.

Perhaps when all this conflict was over Mari and her fellow pilots if any survived would pick up the pen where he left off and become bestselling authors of the new era.

That was something to look forward to even when things seemed so dire as they were.

But now was not the time to make such casual observations.

Creatures who killed without reason could not be reasoned with.

And if the explosions that rocked the briefing room earlier were anything to go by, this bloodthirsty beast had already extorted a heavy price in blood.

And if what the doctor had said about this being's capability to grow stronger with every kill was really true, then this was yet another reason Mari couldn't let that thing live no matter what.

Power corrupted but absolutely power corrupted absolutely seemed to be a saying that held true even for otherworldly abominations that were not meant to be.

But that wasn't all this mission was important for.

And as much as Mari disliked admitting it to herself being the headstrong hero as she was, Dr Akagi had been right to advise the exercising of caution for this encounter.

There was something important she needed to take care of here before she ended up joining the deceased Yui Ikari.

Something vital to ensure that a good woman and mother's sacrifices would not be wasted.

Something that her disloyal and distrustful widowed husband had deliberately neglected to do and in doing so, had spat completely over the grave of his dead wife while disrespecting her in every way possible.

Mari would not simply kill this Angel before it did even a midge more damage to anyone, she would do it in style and come back without a scratch on herself.

Today was the day she set things right for the boy for who she had promised his mother she would protect.

As much for his sake as for the sake of the promise made on the deathbed of the saviour that Mari owed her very life to.

And for the sake too of the cruel world that had done naught but abuse the misunderstood young philanthropist its very fate rested upon, but which did not deserve to die in spite of that.

Mari Makinami Illustrous would not die eaten alive by a hulking unworldly killing machine whose only instinct was to kill and kill without mercy or emotion.  
Not today at the very least.

_And so the action section of our great adventure commences, with Major Misato sitting the first part of this epic fight for humanity's survival solely due to (sigh) another alcohol overdose. Any way to treat set an example for a new recruit?  
Comment and review._


	4. Attack on Angel act 1

**Chapter 4: Attack on Angel Act 1: Beginner's Luck**

_"So uncivilized" – Obi Wan, Leader of the Jedi and mentor to Luke Skywalker commenting about the barbaric and primitive warfare methods of the Sith._

The hangar doors opened wide as Mari's EVA stormed onward, the ground around it shaking with each mighty step.

Hopefully this one would be sturdier than the previous one whose arm had been ripped off not two minutes into its first battle and had hastily fallen apart not two seconds after the battle was won.  
Eva's were after all living and thinking creatures to a degree. And seeing one die on you even if its very purpose was but as a glorified killing machine to be piloted by a glorified cold-blooded murderer, always left a nasty feeling on her.

She still remembered the first time she was permitted entry into one of these biomechanical behemoths.

How the hum of the engine brushed all her insecurities aside and scattered them to the winds.

How in that one moment she was no longer an oddball shorted sighted seventeen-year-old four-eyed freak whose sole purpose for existence was to be the class clown and laughing stock for the bullies in the world.

She felt for the first time in her life, powerful. Powerful and in control.

For the first time in forever she was needed somewhere.

She had found her calling. Her purpose in life which was worth dying for as much as it was worth living for.

Even as her EVA had crushed her first Angel smashing it as an exterminator might smash a bug with a fly swatter, the one thought in her empty mind was the wish that this could go on and on forever.

She was no longer the prey. She had become the predator.  
The hunted had turned the tables and become the hunter.

And boy would Mari Makanami go on one heck of a hunt.

By now, Mari had fixed her sight upon the Angel in question which was growing larger and larger as it begun to devour a ten-story building.  
It was a jet-black colour with bulging white eyes and a gaping mouth which took up most of what could be conceivably described as its face.  
Its body seemed mostly gelatinous in nature and yet there was no mistaking its two-razor sharp golden claws which seemed to glisten in the sun like a beacon of hope.

The sight made Mari want to gag but she still kept her hands steady and her voice unbreaking. It wasn't in a Makanami or an EVA pilot's nature to show weakness before the enemy.

Several thousand viewers who were watching this spectacle unfold in the comfort of their homes were already on the verge of falling off their seats, their mouths as wide open as that of the big mouthed monster trying to turn Tokyo 3 into its lunch.  
The youngest pilot of NERV seemed so calm in the face of deadly danger and she was not hesitating in her EVA's advance towards the enemy in the slightest.

Did she even know this was a danger level 11 mission?

But only Ritsuko Akagi and now Shinji who had only just arrived into the briefing room since Mari's premature dispatch onto the battlefield could hear the uplifting and conviction filled melodies of the one and only member among NERV who had not yet fallen to crippling depression yet.

She was daring, she was eccentric, and some might call her even a little crazy. But she was not depressed. Yet.

Shinji's eyes were practically glued to the screen as he murmured a silent prayer for the girl's success.  
They had only met once, and it had been a very interesting meeting at that.  
And he had only known her name because she had blurted it over her phone to some unknown caller before waving him goodbye and darting away in her handmade goofy looking glider.

He knew virtually nothing about who he only now knew to be his newest fellow pilot.  
He only knew that if her mannerisms and inflections in the way she spoke were anything to go by from that one awkward encounter, she was a kind and steadfast companion to those she befriended. And a brave girl at that.

If only the same could be said for his two other fellow pilots.

He wondered if he was betraying his allegiance to Asuka and Rei as he continued his fervent yet solemn call to the heavens for Mari's success and safe return from these impossible odds and her trip to death's door.

He'd gladly have rushed to his personal EVA and ran it out to help her but doctor Akagi had warned that his sudden appearance might interrupt her focus and do more harm than good.

For once in his life he was really hoping that TOKYO-3 TIMES was more than a pile of propaganda and fancy buzzwords to hide the glaring faults in a crap-filled city full of deceits.  
**FOURTH CHILD – FIRST PLACE. NEWEST PILOT OF NERV STRONGEST IN THE WORLD ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL TESTS **he had read in a sheet of newspaper during his long wait in the traffic jam, having no interest in his schoolwork and nothing to say to the stone-like driver who had escorted him to his destination nor to his violent redheaded roommate.  
Those tests had better have been truly statistically accurate, and they had better have been conclusive and fair tests as well.  
He swore he would tear apart NERV's research facilities with his own hands if they were not.

"What a drama queen" he heard the irate German remark with mocking disdain. "No one needs to see you anyway and you're not a celebrity in some drama show."

Well you're the one always complaining that NERV doesn't rate you highly enough and that Rei only got in through Nepotism and sucking up, Shinji silently sighed to himself.

Mari begun the fight with a devastating kick with her EVA's mechanical leg to the Angel's neck, having waited a few seconds for it to turn it's back to her to begin chowing down on another hopefully already evacuated building.

The satisfying noise of reinforced alloy connecting with unprotected Angel flesh gave her a confidence boost and she quickly followed up with a rapid succession of punches which had the huge black creature reeling.

A disgusting puddle of some dark liquid splattered from its gaping void like mouth and it's gleaming jet-black skin seemed to grow ever so slightly coarser in texture like an almost melting ice cream.

Despite the clearly very ailing injuries that the EVA had inflicted upon it, the creature was clearly far from finished as it tried to claw at its opponent in the moment that the half machine and half biological EVA's overexerted limbs were bracing for yet the next series of blows which would hopefully have finished it off or at least weakened it into submission.

"Dodge that, you idiot. Fly you fool" Shinji egged tersely as his vision fixed even more tightly to the television screen, banging his fist uncontrollably onto the table he was sat beside.

His overwhelming concern for a girl who was to all intents and purposes still mostly a stranger to him was beginning to negatively impact his usually tightly censored and highly selective and sensitive language lobes.

"You're the idiot" He heard sarcastically coming from behind him, but this only caused him to grit his teeth more tightly and bang harder.

His heart practically exploded from his chest as the gleaming golden claw came down upon the EVA's shoulder pad.

Mari's eyesight may not have been great even with her now very outdated pair of spectacles she had not managed to replace with all that was on her cluttered mind, but she was not blind.  
As the fatal set of sharp nails were all but upon her EVA to give it a nasty rake, a rapid yet calm flick of a joystick sent her fading to the right slightly so only a very small and inconsequential graze was the only damage the hardened metal right joint ended up receiving.

"Get in there. Kill that son of a b*tch. Go on. YOU CAN DO THIS, I KNOW YOU CAN"  
the usually introverted and soft spoken outcasted son of the uncaring Gendo Ikari whopped joyously, banging the table even more as he did so as if he were a spectator in a Sumo Wrestler stadium and not a professional military protector watching his fellow military protector struggling not to get killed by a greatly superior enemy which could destroy all of mankind if not stopped.

The sudden change in the flow of the battle, relieving as it was, was only corrupting his already corrupted language lobes even more.

SHINJI-IKARI-PROFANITY-CHECKER. EXE- had crashed due to system overload.

But Shinji didn't care at this moment. All that mattered was that the chances were once again in Mari's favour and that she was finally stepping further away from the jaws of death.

"Hmph, dummkopf. Du sind am zeit tu zeit dummer als deine idiotische Vater Gendo"

The doctor had become a broken-down mess as she sat with her face buried in her hands clearly trying very hard to suppress her quiet yet painful sobs which could not help but escape her.

The EVA's next few seconds were spent mostly on the defence as it dodged between the Angel's clumsy but powerful punches.  
The audience behind the telly screens of Tokyo swooning left and right following the motions of their saviour's war machine, the news channel on the screen had all but become their world as hot saliva trickled from their still open mouths.

Time seemed to turn to a blur as in the next few seconds, the slowly disintegrating monster of black slime overbalanced and tripped.  
A deep throated groan made the earth rumble as it fell, reminding Shinji of the last time he had watched the walking dead except louder and scarier.  
For the first time since arriving into the briefing room that day he was completely silent.

He along with all the other spectators no doubt clustered around their screens, was waiting with bated breath.

Asuka only shook her head at this.  
If only he could be this eager about watching her in action instead of that glasses freak with the stupid hairstyle.

Mari had been eagerly anticipating this very moment as she quickly jerked two joysticks with her now very sweaty palms to quickly capitalize on the advantage.

The dodge and wear down the enraged enemy tactic from Warfare-101 was working itself like a charm.  
Sometimes the simplest strategies made for the best battles.

A very creepy smile of savage glee crossed the brunette's face as her EVA moved in to deliver the final blow. So much fun even if this war was so gruesome and horrific.

The massive Angel had fallen far enough for its neck to once again be exposed and after executing one final well aimed kick to the creature's shin to completely knock it for six, the creature was grabbed tightly into a headlock whereupon diamond hard biomechanical fangs sunk themselves deep into its already bleeding neck.

Another massive moan of pain shook the city and Shinji and Asuka were even forced to cover their ears just as the chief scientist of NERV finally regained her composure and managed to struggle back to her feet.

The dying Angel finally fell silent as a black sludge begun to pour from its mouth flooding the streets around it. The clean up crew would have a lot of work to do.  
The Angel itself begun to dishevel even more and it even seemed to decrease in size as more mysterious liquid leaked out.  
Its body seemed to convulse and tremble like a hypothermia victim struggling in vain to keep out the cold and it curved into a ball like a baby.

Then after a tense wait which seemed to last an eternity but was really just a minute, the now much smaller creature which had been bigger than Mari's Eva in its prime finally lay still.

A reassuring silence filled the air.  
It lasted only briefly however as a raucous applause spread through the devastated city.  
Popcorn fell on the ground and drinks were spilled as people young and old from around the city danced around and yipped for a joy that had not been felt for an immeasurably long amount of time ever since the previous impact.

Most everyone was cheering at the top of their lungs as the barely scratched EVA stood triumphantly resting its right foot on the corpse of it's now almost pathetic looking foe, save for Misato who had missed the entire spectacle because of a splitting headache and terribly upset stomach that had restrained her to her bed that day.

The acute symptoms of alcohol abuse.

The one person who was not intently putting their all into a massive smile that might not have the chance to appear for a very long time after this glorious event had worn off was the Eva pilot herself who merely spared a glance at the gigantic river of black vomit which had most likely been the remains of the dead Angel's previous meal.

"So uncivilized" she nonchalantly remarked.

Her superiors NERV really was losing their touch if this was what they classed as Danger level 11 out of 10.

It might as well have been classed Danger level 0 with how little of a hassle this battle had been.  
She had dealt with that beast like she dealt with a bug.  
They really were just insulting her talents with bringing her such a trivial task of child's play.

But Shinji had no such control as he punched the air around him and jumped so high that his onlookers felt he might touch the skies.  
"yes, Yes! YESSSSS!" he assertively roared in triumph as he danced around the room making a complete fool of himself in front of the roommate and secret romantic crush, he knew to be both highly irritable and easily insulted.

Asuka only grunted in frustration and shook her head, too tired to deal with this nonsense.  
But the doctor allowed herself the second smirk of the day as she watched the celebrating boy with a sense of quiet nostalgia at how so many difficult years seemed to fade away from Shinji in the blink of an eye.

The inner child within that boy had not died completely after all.

It seemed there were high hopes for him yet. And by extension, high hopes for the world that depended on him.

10 minutes later, the small side door leading to the EVA hangars slid upon and a now well under control Mari strode out with an expression that was neither happy nor unhappy.

"You did great" Shinji begun but was quickly interrupted by a tap on his shoulder as Mari glanced one more time in the direction of Dr Akagi and Asuka to ensure that neither of them was looking in their direction.

The Doctor was sat by a laptop in the room typing the mission's report to the higher ups of NERV and Asuka was glancing impatiently at a clock in the room clearly frustrated by this pointless delay to her day and clearly eager to get going at any moment. Both were in a different corner of the room quite a distance away.

The brown-haired girl then put her face to Shinji's ear and in a meticulously adjusted small voice which Shinji could barely make out, whispered a quick few words.

"Meet me by the tube station near here later. It's very urgent. I'll explain everything there."

The very surprised boy opened his mouth to further inquire but Mari silenced him with a quick finger over her lips. Then as quickly as she had done so the first time they met, she quickly made her way out the exit of the room.

It was only after the sound of her footsteps died away when Shinji turned back to Asuka who was by now also heading in the direction of the exit clearly eager to return to what could remotely be called her life.

His words were surprisingly confident and self-assured when he next spoke.

"Erm. Asuka. Is it okay if I don't come home today? I sort of promised a friend that I'd pay them a visit today. They were quite resolute that I go to them today no matter what and there's a chance I might end up staying there overnight, so I might end up not coming back home today if that's alright with you."

Asuka gave him a quick scan and for a split second he felt the crippling insecurity of the normal introverted Shinji threaten to make a return.  
But her suspicious stare soon turned to a disdainful frown.

"Whatever idiot. It's not as if we'll need you anyway. Do what you want. I'm going out tonight to get some food which is bound to be miles better than your pathetic cooking."

Then with a final dreary "ugh, I'm out of here." The German redhead bolted from the room not looking back as she did.

Once again, Shinji waited for the footsteps to completely die away before he made any movement. He walked delicately up to Doctor Akagi and waited for her to turn away from her work to acknowledge him.  
"So, Doctor Akagi. If there's nothing left for me to do here, I guess I'll get going now, if that's alright with you."

"Of course Shinji. The threat has been dealt with and since I have no further orders concerning you from HQ, it should be fine if you go. I'll call a driver for you."

"That's kind of you Doctor Akagi, but really there's no need. I'll just be walking to the tube station not far from here. I promised a friend we'd meet there today and they're probably already worried sick about me not being there."

"That's perfectly fine Shinji. Take care of yourself and I guess we'll see you here for your next mission soon. Goodbye."

"And goodbye to you too. Have a nice day" Shinji replied with surprising fire in his tone as he boldly strode for the exit of the building, feeling more positive with every step for some inexplicable reason.

Had Asuka been hitting him less hard over the past days?  
Unlikely with how aggressive and harsh her outburst this morning over a late and hastily prepared breakfast had been with how badly injured his last mission left him.

Had Misato been paying him more attention and finally treating him with some sense of proprietary or love as an adoptive son ought to be treated by his adoptive mother?

She had most likely gone into an alcohol overdose this morning from a and not even bothered to acknowledge Asuka's punch in his face with even one of her usual snide remarks on how some girls showed their affections in different ways and one just had to live with it.  
He knew Misato well enough to realize this was the only probable reason for her absence at the breakfast table and from his missions.

Was the world closer to safety now?  
The image of the hulking angel and the sheer amount of vile matter it had ejected from its body in its dying moments answered this question for him.

There was no real reason for him to feel this spring in his step he was feeling now. The earth was still in danger and it still felt as if the world would turn upon him in an instant if he gave them the slightest and most trivial reason.

The one explanation he could muster as the front door to the outside world finally came into sight and a gentle autumn breeze caressed his skin was Mari.

A girl he had never known and yet for inexplicable reasons felt very deeply connected to.  
Like two halves of a soul which had been split apart long ago finally merging together once again.

It was as if the first time he had seen her crash landing onto his school rooftop, making a quick call and taking off again he had thought her to be nothing more than an illusion. A figment of his overactive imagination.

But seeing her here in the flesh and being the direct subject of a few words, she had clearly intended for only him and him alone to hear had been what truly what confirmed her to be real.

Who was she really?  
And what did she want with him?

He knew that if left unanswered, these two questions would haunt him to his grave and beyond.  
And that truly was a fate worse than death.

This was bigger than just saving the world from the unforgivable mistakes it had made in the past.  
And he would get to the bottom of this mystery even if it killed him.

Sometimes in life, you had a simple choice. Take a chance and risk everything or play it safe and lose out.

_And there's chapter 4. A "super chapter" of sorts.  
Now the true drama, action and mystery begins. And it's going to be one heck of an emotional rollercoaster from here on.  
And as usual, reviews are always welcome with how much effort and time it takes me to right these chapters.  
Also. Have you noticed all the chapter titles are a reference to certain well known works. As a bonus little activity while you wait for the next chapter, try to guess all the references. Kudos for those who get it right.  
Till then thanks and have a nice day._


	5. White Butler Sakura

**Chapter 5: White butler Sakura: A very special dinner for a very special guest**  
_"We have no need for our past. We only need our present and future" - Ciel Phantomhive, last survivor of the Phantomhive family._

In a large and showy white mansion on the quitter and less densely populated outskirts of Tokyo 3, a sweet smell of close to a thousand expensive and exquisite cuisine ingredients wafted through the kitchens as a young smiling butler rushed here and there checking and rechecking every last oven and every pot in the room.  
Not one single dish could be even slightly overcooked or undercooked on this fine evening if she and her master were to make a good impression upon the special guest of honour who they planned to invite here today and who she knew would be coming very soon.  
Every last detail of every last dish had to be perfect so that every mouthful would feel like nothing less than the forbidden fruit that grew only on the most mighty tree of the highest cloud in heaven.

Upon finally finishing her detailed observation of the food that would soon be ready, she moved forward to the pile of shiny china which she had carefully arranged by a large sink in the corner of the finely scented smoked room and begun to scrub.  
The fancy set of surfaces that were used to serve food for guests and residents alike in the mansion were usually kept squeaky clean but the butler took things to a new level this time applying an extra thick layer of the strongest soaps and disinfectants available from the chemicals cupboard.

"Kills 99.9 percent of bacteria" ordinary dishwashing fluid would simply not do for the dishes and cups that the very important man's very special dinner would be served in. She worried whether even one that killed one hundred percent would be good enough.

His clean and healthy habits which made him unusually attractive and which he and he alone bothered to keep up even in these harsh times of global conflict meant that even the smallest trace of pathogens would not go unnoticed by his incredibly sensitive taste buds.

And the last thing their tired guest needed after a long day of very difficult yet very professional work in which several people nay several countries depended on his life-changing decisions was the slightest sense of discomfort.

Every single piece of cutlery, crockery, and every plate and cup were vigorously scrubbed from every conceivable angle so that by the end of the cleaning session they shone like diamonds.

The same had been done earlier with every floor, wall, furniture piece and just about every other surface in the big house whether it be as conspicuous as the gemstone encrusted chandelier in the dining room or as invisible as the floors beneath every bed of every bedroom and the inside of every toilet as unpleasant a job as the young butler found this.

Walking through the house would have felt like walking through a gemstone cavern where the walls themselves were crafted of bespoken materials for which a single chunk would have broken the bank.  
The floors were so sanitary one could have eaten off them.

A pure and calming fragrance filled the air of the completely tidied and sanitised vast halls of the sizeable abode that she was lucky enough to be head servant and the only servant for.

It was no small job taking care of the many rooms in a standard day to day setting and her work that had persisted throughout the day and till now in the late afternoon had strained every last one of her muscles everywhere.

And with how she had been forced to spend most of the morning resting away the last vestiges of a nasty fever which had taken her off work and how even now her hot head still stung a little, she had really outdone even herself today.

Being a kind and understanding woman unlike most of the greedy cheapskates in this rotten city, her master had offered to let her rest peacefully until she recovered her strength.

The compassionate employer had even gone through the trouble of personally making her meals and administering her medicine and relaxation therapies of massages and bedtime stories during the previous few days which an unexpected fever caused by her frail young body and an unusually cold autumn had raged within her, depriving her of the strength needed to optimally perform her daily chores.

And to top it all off, she'd even gotten paid for those days on account of her exceptionally brilliant performance she'd rendered her master's household when in health. What a good woman.

To have done anything but ring her master the instant the clock struck ten and she felt she could move her legs and arms just a little better and tell her that her number one butler was capable of working well today after all and that everything would be completely prepared in time for the VIP guest that had been mentioned earlier that day, would have been completely unladylike of her.

She still didn't feel the best, but she could completely guarantee that what she had left of her sickness was a hundred percent not contagious and that any further attempt to lengthen her paid convalescence would simply be pure laziness and ingratitude at this point.

Such was how the loyalty she had to the woman she served compelled her to act.

The dishes had finally all been finished. A four-course grand banquet featuring a basted twenty ounce turkey complete with roasted potatoes, stuffing and a collection of freshly produced and treated vegetables as the main course and a cherry flavoured ice cream garnished with a luscious set of fine chocolates imported de bruxelles, the chocolatine capital of the world.

And if that previous treat failed to tickle the VIP diner's fancy, she had also readied a backup treat which she was sure he had heard about many times but never been blessed enough to yet taste.

It was eine Schwartzwalder Gateau, a ground-breaking German delicacy whose production had ceased in all but the most prosperous cities in its home nation with a secret formula jealousy kept secret.

She had been forced therefore to create the recipe herself using only minor titbits' from a few websites scattered messily around the internet each containing only vague clues on what such an edible treat might have looked like were it more readily available as guidance.

The creation process had hurt her eyes as much as it had hurt her muscles.

But all this work would more than pay off when the dinner guest who'd soon be arriving graced her and her master with one of his rare smiles.

Being aged but 10 years of age did not qualify as an excuse for that. Not when she had been offered such a prestigious job for an equally prestigious abode.

It was not in the nature of Sakura Suzuhara, butler and royal guard of the Illustrious household to let her master down when it came to matters as vital as seeing to the comfort of a guest whose opinion could make or break the reputation of the good name of the Illustrious lineage of which her master was the sole survivor of.

While her older brother Toji had his stand offs on the bloody battlefields of EVA's against Angels, her battlefield was the dining table on which smart negotiations were held over delicious dinners.  
Not the most conventional kind of battlefield if one was seeking to earn recognition she understood, but it was a no less difficult task nonetheless.

Every guest's whims had to be catered to at the snap of a finger and if so much as a hair was out of place, the entire experience was ruined and Sakura had soiled the good Illustrious name which she had promised both master Mari and herself that she would defend with all her might.  
Soiled it. Soiled it. Soiled it.

And more importantly perhaps, it was the better kind battlefield that ideally had only winners and no deaths. A shame how NERV did not seem to think so with their brutal ideologies that Sakura all but cursed nightly.

The differences in their polar opposite doctrines did nothing to quell the often very violent arguments she and her brother could not help but break into time and time again and it hurt her just to hear him mentioned let alone return home for even short periods of time without feeling immense discomfort.

The place which had started as but her bread and butter for playing her part in providing money to her financially struggling household which owed NERV a lot of debts despite being underage for most jobs remaining, had all but become the new haven she now called her home instead.

...

Her happiest memory being the day she met Mari.  
A cold and windy evening when she'd been turned down for every job offer on account of being "too young" and "too pretty and innocent for the harsh world outside the warm and loving embrace of mummy and daddy" (unbeknownst to them all, her father was a very angry man who was a heavy drinker and given to random bouts of unprovoked rage in which furniture from all over their meagre abode was smashed) even after she had gone to every job office in Tokyo Three begging and pleading that she'd take any job they had no matter how unpleasant.

"Go home to your mummy and daddy, kid, you're too young."

"You? Work? With those tiny arms you couldn't survive a day on this job"

"Shouldn't you be in school right now, you little brat?"

"Ha ha ha. Oh wait you're serious about finding work with your weak and tiny body. Well let me laugh even harder. HAHAHAHA!"

Her father had forbidden her from coming home unless she could prove to him that she could find employment and earn her keep in the financially struggling family.  
It was that or be kicked out onto the streets to beg until she starved. Her father didn't care one bit.

NERV had become even more stingy with the extraordinary protection fees it demanded from everyone and the discount along with the tiny salary Toji received as a pilot in NERV was failing to make ends meet.

This had only worsened the gruff their father had landed himself into ever since their mother had been hit with a NERV escort truck which had been in too great of a rush to see the unfortunate woman who was crossing the street perfectly carefully and responsibly.

And it went without saying that NERV being NERV, gave her family, zero compensation.

Sakura and Toji's mother died because the family didn't have enough money to afford her high medical bills for the operation that would have saved her life. The hospitals too had been sucked dry by NERV's taxes and in turn was forced to charge higher and higher prices per operation.

So when Sakura's father had run into the reception fists flailing while demanding they heal his beloved and his children's loving mother despite his insufficient funds, the emotionless man simply repeated word for word the section in the hospital's terms and conditions which clearly stated that only patients who had a sponsor able to afford the bills were to be given any further treatment whatsoever.

Not long after, the dying woman's life support machine was switched off and this had incited a violent frenzy from her broken husband who was simply zapped with a taser and promptly thrown out the hospital to where his two anxious children were waiting for him. (Children were not generally allowed into the hospital)

Sakura and Toji had very reluctantly dragged the unconscious form of their father home knowing that the instant he re-awoke, his remaining righteous fury would be taken out on them.

Their grim predictions had been absolutely correct despite their youth and naivete and Sakura still remembered vividly the intense beating her father had delivered to her the moment his eyes reopened and the first thing he saw was her tending carefully to his wearied body.

He had become a heavy drinker since then and this had tightened the strings on their already strained purse even more and it was for this reason, he had demanded his daughter bring him some money as well or be booted from his presence evermore.

But Sakura knew her family members too well to know that the actual reason he had sent her out on this pointless quest was because of the unfortunate fact that she had her mother's hair and eyes and her father could not look at her without being reminded of the woman he had lost to austerity and greed.

He wasn't nearly this bad to Toji and even continued to give some degree of fatherly love to her brother.  
Something that the brother in question could not help but rub in her face a little much to her eternal heartbreak.

It was as if even a brother as dear and loyal as her Toji was blaming her for this traumatic incident she had zero control over and which she would never have wished even upon her worst enemy.

No affection from her now dead mother.  
No love from her forever broken father.  
No respect from her now vindictive and showboating brother.

A flower without sunshine doomed to perish in darkness, unwanted and unloved by anyone despite doing nothing wrong.

The negative emotions which had bottled themselves up over the tragic years became too much and after being ushered out of the twenty fifth job office and told not to come back till she was a lot older that Sakura could not help but cry bitterly into her dirty shirt.

She pounded her forehead with one tightly balled fist and punched the air with the other while groups of wealthy aristocrats garbed in fancy passed her by without so much as a glance in her direction.

The last job centre had had the esoteric eccentricity of being located on a promenade in the upper crust part of the city and upper crusts were not known for their compassion in the slightest.

It was here where the one out of the ordinary woman she would come to call her master came upon her.

"It's okay" the still crying girl heard from what seemed like back of her mind. "It's okay." The voice was calming and caring yet simultaneously fun and charming.

She felt a caring hand pat her back and through her tears she saw two bright brown eyes regarding her with genuine concern for her plight.

The eyes of Mari Makinami illustrious. Her future employer.

The next moment through her sorrow and between sobs, Sakura spilled her guts to the stranger who at least seemed trustworthy enough.

She told the brown haired woman with glasses about how her father and brother had all but disowned her and her quest for any kind of work which could put even the smallest pile of pennies into her empty pockets.

She remembered her utter jubilation and ecstasy of joy at her master's reply to her plea.

"You can come and work for me. I have this mansion which could certainly use some work. And since my work takes up a great deal of my life, your presence there would be invaluable since I see from the honesty of your expression that you are a good worker.  
You wouldn't have to do much. Just tidy everything and occasionally run a few simple errands for me and in return, I'll give you more than enough money to feed your entire family and room and board as well. No strings attached, I promise, and you can start right now if you want."

A cheerful nod and a few brief introductions later Sakura Suzuhara became butler Sakura Suzuhara, head servant (and only servant) of the Illustrious family.

A warm bed and top-grade food as well as a thick wad of notes at every pay review enough to tint her father and brother's fingernails with gold figuratively speaking while leaving herself enough to afford all her wants leaving no obstacle to her happiness.

So long as she honoured the three sacred promises she'd made to Mari.

That she would never lie to or betray her master, for the fall of every great friendship begun with the lack of honesty between two parties.

That she would always follow her orders without question, save for when she believed that Mari's decision would do more harm than good in which case promise one took precedence.

It was this fundamental rule, Mari had taught her which separated truly good people from two groups of do-gooders who only professed to do good but in reality didn't even know the meaning of good.

The herd of obedient cattle that the evil overlords of the world were herding into straight into a death trap through their so called "rules"

And the inconsiderate anarchists who took no advice from anyone even those who only wanted the best for them and thus could never build lasting partnerships living and dying alone.

Balance was the vital aspect of life that NERV had neglected in its corrosive regimen to "bring order to an uncivilised and backwards world", Mari once explained over a glass of warm herbal tea.

Then there was rule three. A rule that Sakura could never fully promise that she could follow to the letter. But it was the rule that truly proved that her master was nothing short of an ideal paragon of honour.

If worst came to worst and if they both were stranded on a sinking ship where only one space in one lifeboat remained, then Sakura was to leave Mari and save herself so that she might continue her master's work for her in her absence.

The feeling of mutual and requited trust. A thing more valuable than all the gold and jewels in the world. A feeling more important than friendship and even love.

A feeling the world had disregarded and in doing so caused its own downfall.

...

But now was not the time for any more sentimentally, Sakura jauntily thought to herself as she finished setting the table with all the dishes she had prepared to an exact science.

And with no more chores for her to do till Mari and her star guest none other than the magnificent one-man army Shinji Ikari returned, she could do as she wished.

Sakura first rushed to the nearest bathroom to check herself over. The house looking like heaven itself made no impact whatsoever if she wasn't fully presentable herself.

A thin but not malnourished ten-year girl with brown eyes and hair down to her shoulder proudly stared back at her through polished glass.

With her appearance checked and carefully cleaned, Sakura jogged merrily downstairs to put on a song that she could dance and sing to until the guest arrived.

"Don't worry Shinji." Sakura firmly insisted. "Mari helped me. She can help you too."


	6. Evangelion Alignment Chart (bonus)

Secret Alignment chart Dossier

Compiled by D.A.D.O.O.F.E.D (Dungeons and Dragons official organisation for Earth's defence)  
To be always kept top secret and confidential from those outside the organization.

Lawful good to chaotic evil

**Lawful good**

Ritsuko Akagi: Throughout the Evangelion Series, this kind scientist has always struck me as nothing less than a near ideal paragon of goodness even in the cruel world she lives and works in.  
She's one of the few people to never harass, insult or undermine Shinji.  
She always tries to see every situation rationally and objectively rather than jumping to a conclusion.  
Her one drawback would have to be that she's a little too rule bound and not independent enough to stand against the evil rules enforced upon her by the corrupt NERV.

That and Shinji was unlucky enough to be placed under Misato's care and not hers.

**Neutral good (The best)**

Shinji Ikari: If there was just one character I would always root for, it would be this young hero. The one reason I watch the Evangelion series as dark as it is, is in the faint hope that he gets a happy ending at the end alive and well with enough of his friends left to keep him from going insane.  
It's the one ending that could do this franchise justice at this point.  
He really is the perfect balance of law and goodness. And considering that the world treats him like nothing but crap, he really is nothing less than a saint the way he acts.

He never gets angry at anyone except himself even when they do nothing good for him.  
And for me at least, Shinji represents everything wrong with the Evangelion universe in general.

Cruel people like Asuka and Gendo get preferential treatment and medals while the one guy trying to improve the world while everyone else does squat, gets kicked in the face for doing nothing wrong.

People tell him, do this and when he does exactly as he's told, they beat him up.

Mari Makinami: The other character that I view as a saint among everyone.  
I in fact believed when I first saw Evangelion 2 that she would actually be the main character (I never watched Evangelion 1). She also hasn't done anything wrong to Shinji and actively regrets having to deceive and kill which is very admirable.

She does jump from side to side, but is not actively trying to break the rules as long as they are good rules.  
I feel that Evangelion 3's characterization of her didn't do her justice in the slightest.  
She is reduced to little more than Asuka's lackey who would approve of Shinji being in an abusive relationship with a bully.

I in fact have a theory that at some point between Rebuild 2 and 3, Mari was captured by WILLE and brainwashed with a mind control device. It would explain why all the energy in her lines were so lacklustre in delivery and passion by then.

Sakura Suzuhara- Holds no grudge, is polite and is very forgiving from what little we see of her. Enough said.

**Chaotic Good  
**Yui Ikari: If Gendo's depression over losing her is anything to go by, Shinji's mother was a good woman in life. Her methods of protecting the world however were very questionable since she did it while her infant son was watching and while knowing that losing her would cause Gendo to go crazy.

My guess is that Gendo didn't treat her well (would you put it past him) and that by the end of her life, she had lost the will to go any further.

She still wanted to help the world, but she was too far gone by then to think straight or want to continue living.

**Lawful Neutral**

Misato Katsuragi: As a NERV member she only cared about obeying the orders she was given. As a WILLE leader, she only cared about who she could assert her dominance over.  
She never wanted to destroy the world, but she never wanted to improve it either.

She never actively antagonized Shinji but she also did nothing to protect him from Asuka.

For me, Misato is only slightly above being an evil villain.  
She is a coward who can dish it out but can't take it. She will happily boss Shinji around but not do anything to discipline Asuka because Asuka is meaner and more domineering.

She shouts at Shinji because Shinji doesn't punch windows apart and Asuka does. That really is poor discipline.

Her choice to let Shinji escape in Evangelion 3 and a few genuinely supportive lines near the end of Evangelion 2 make me only just barely put her outside evil territory.

But I think she shouldn't be Shinji's adoptive parent and that she owes Shinji a big apology. She also needs to punish Asuka for assaulting a fellow pilot.

**True Neutral**

EVA's: Whether these machines rebuild or destroy the world is up to the few pilots able to connect to them. A pilot can just as easily become corrupted and turned into a monster as they become a hero driving one of these things.

**Chaotic Neutral**

Hikari - Asuka's close friend from school. She doesn't particularly want to improve or destroy the world. She just goes after the next impressive looking bad girl she finds and in this case Asuka, completely disregarding the fact that Asuka bullies Shinji.

Simply because Asuka looks cool and hip, Hikari chooses friendship with Asuka.

**Lawful Evil**

ASUKA LANGLEY SORYU- Need I say more? She punches Shinji and abuses him on a day to day basis while sucking up to her higher ups in NERV and later WILLE simply so she can have a higher rank and more reputation.  
She of all people should know what Shinji is going through right now and be there to support him after he has saved her life countless times and shown that he would gladly die for her.

Instead she calls him stupid Shinji and does nothing but abuse him without once thanking him.

I think she only went to check on Shinji at the end of Evangelion 3 because she was confident there was no danger (if there was still an Angel she would left him to die) and because she knew he was the only one she could boss around and get away with it.  
In other words, she wanted to keep him around as a punching bag and a slave and not because she cared a whit about him.

She obeys the laws set by NERV and WILLE because she wants a higher rank, but she will do anything outside these laws that she can get away with such as assaulting a fellow operative in the presence of an uncaring superior officer who is too apathetic to care.

It is implied that if the war against EVA's and Angel's one day ended, Asuka would go insane from having nothing else she could do well besides piloting and fighting in an EVA while Shinji, Mari and even Rei would be able to reintegrate back into society as productive and helpful rebuilders.

Asuka suffers from crippling overspecialization. The only thing she can do about well is to fight, and even in war fighting makes up only a tiny part of what must be done to win.

Shinji and Mari can negotiate well. And being able to negotiate well is useful in both peace and war.  
You need to negotiate to make sure your army doesn't fight itself and you need to negotiate a peace deal with enemies after you've won so that another war doesn't happen.

In fact if people just negotiated well, there wouldn't need to be a war.

Asuka claims that Rei is the one who got in through nepotism, when she herself is the one sucking up to NERV even when she can plainly see what they were doing was morally wrong.

Her tragic past should only make her appreciate Shinji's kindness more.

**Neutral Evil (The worst)  
**GENDO IKARI – This man is the epitome of selfishness. He claims that he cares about his wife but if that were the case then he would take better care of his son since he is an aspect of his wife.  
He would also treat his employees at NERV better since his wife sacrificed her life to save them, and since he doesn't do that, he is spitting in his wife's face and disrespecting Yui in every way possible.

So many villains want to kill people to bring a loved one back to life, but here is the thing.  
Their loved one sacrificed themselves so others could live so doing that is going against their wishes.  
And the loved one in question loved the villain specifically because back then, they weren't a villain.

Even if Gendo were to successfully bring his wife back, do you think she'd like the things he did and the people he killed?

Gendo isn't generous enough to go down himself. He wants to drag the world down with him as he goes down to satisfy his sadism.

In fact he's too cowardly to even admit his mistakes so instead he continues being the unfit leader of NERV while ruining the world with his bad decisions.

If you look at how most characters in EVANGELION live in crummy apartments with beer and instant noodles, there is evidence that Gendo demands extraordinary taxes as a protection fee and is basically sucking the world economy dry.  
Look at how fancy Gendo's office is and how fancy his limo is and how crummy, messy and small Shinji, Asuka and Misato's apartment is.

He enforces rules for others to benefit himself, while happily breaking every one of his own rules.

He loves Rei in a twisted way because she has Yui's genes, proving he only loves a picture of Yui rather than Yui herself. And if you really love somebody, you should continue being the good person you were to them long after they are gone.

**Chaotic Evil. **

The Angels – Their one instinct is to kill. A lot like zombies or killer robots really.  
They are the punishment for mankind's past mistakes but they don't act out of their own malice.  
They just do what they were programmed to do, to destroy everything.

They cannot be brought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. They just want to watch the world burn.

Final word: Shinji is probably the only likeable character in the entire series. He's polite, he doesn't bully others and he do as he is told even when the world is doing nothing but mistreating him.

I don't think Shinji should end up with Asuka or Rei.  
Asuka's actions towards him are unforgivable and she is nothing but violent and unpleasant.  
Rei is kinder but too shy and insecure to provide Shinji with the encouragement he needs in his life.

In a way, Asuka and Rei are two extremes which are both bad.  
Rei cares too much about the little things in life to move onto anything bigger.  
Asuka cannot bother with petty trifles, but fails to see that it's the little things in life which make up the big things (such as maybe being a bit nicer to Shinji)

As such, I believe that not only is Mari a viable romance option for Shinji, she is the only option in the show's own logic.

She's the only person who's both confident while not malicious.  
She provides Shinji with positive energy and like Shinji she wants to improve the world and be there for her friends.

And if you read the supplementary materiel, Mari had close relationships with Shinji's mother Yui.

The shared love for a good woman is also another thing Mari and Shinji have in common.

_Ps: Next chapter should come soon. Thank you so much for reading thus far, and please review. All reviews welcome and greatly appreciated.  
Catch you all next time! _


	7. When Mari was there

**Chapter 7: When Mari was there.**

Shinji found the brown-haired newbie of NERV sitting patiently for him outside the Subway.  
The wind played with her long brown hair making it fly around in a very attractive fashion as she turned to face him with a friendly smile.  
His shaking shyness in contrast with her elegant confidence would have fooled anyone into thinking she was his senior pilot and not the other way around.

"You came." She remarked joyfully. "Thank you so much for coming."

"Erm, you're welcome" Shinji nervously replied confused as to how anyone could be so happy to see an awkward introvert such as himself.  
It had been a long time since anyone had been this overjoyed to greet him. Even when he had single-handedly prevented the second impact, he had gotten little more than a sarcastic sneer from his superiors in NERV as if he was the one who nearly caused the impact. And that was the battle he considered his greatest victory.

"So what is it you wanted to talk to me about, err sorry what was your name again?" Every word from his mouth was stuttered. He had not had a formal conversation for a long time and his voice had atrophied as a result.

"Mari." The girl patiently answered, seemingly finding his stutters endearing rather than annoying to his great relief. "Mari Makinami Illustrious. Fourth pilot and fourth child of NERV. It's an honour to finally meet you, Shinji Ikari."

"Erm. How do you… know my name." Although he was indeed a senior pilot of NERV, no one really brought him into conversation very much except to chide him for his cowardice and softness.  
He had long since given up any hope of fame or recognition for his deeds.

"Everyone knows about the famous Shinji Ikari and his heroism. And as a pilot, it is of course my duty to recognize my fellow pilots and my superiors."

These simple words of praise warmed his empty heart like a lovely fire. He begun to feel warm inside with every word she spoke as if he was finally re-entering heaven after being locked out for too long.  
He very nearly pinched himself. This couldn't be real. This was too good to be true.

"So, shall we get going. There's a lot I wanted to talk to you about and its very important information that no one else can know but you. I can tell you more back at my house if that's alright with you." She stared at him with hopeful eyes as she finished her request. It was as if she would break in half if he refused. And despite her jovial and light-hearted tone, Shinji could tell from her expression how very important what she was intended to tell him would be.

His very life would depend on it.

Normally Shinji would have been shaken up at the prospect of going to a stranger's house that was not the abode of his drunk and lazy major.  
But the earnest and completely respectful mannerisms of Mari gave him courage. This was not another Asuka.  
He had a feeling this meeting would turn out this way anyway.

"Well, alright. That would be fine with me. Lead the way, Mari."

"Thank you so much for your time. I promise you won't regret this Shinji." The brunette reassured him as she led him to the barriers leading to the train platforms.

"We need to take a train to get to my house." She explained as they approached the ticket barrier.  
Before Shinji could interject further, Mari smoothly dipped her hand into her skirt pocket and in the style of a stage magician produced two shiny first-class tickets, one of which she kept for herself and one she gave to Shinji who shyly but gratefully took it.

An unusual feeling of great bliss and satisfaction washed over the usually sullen and weary boy as he followed Mari down the stairs to the platform after they had checked their tickets.  
It felt good to finally be treated like a human being worthy of respect and politeness for a change after untold years spent suffering at the hands of one jerk after another one of whom was his own father.  
It felt good to not be called the idiot or the brat but by his name for a change.

What was the world coming to when a boy couldn't trust his father?

A train came not too much later, a sleek and stylish rail bound vehicle whose sparkling turquoise carriages were squeaky clean with no signs of wear or tear.

A sharply dressed man in an expensive suit bowed lightly as Mari and Shinji along with a few other extravagantly outfitted passengers one of whom had a monocle with a golden chain and a top hat, boarded the train. The two young NERV pilots took their seats next to each other in plush seats which had to have been obsessively tweaked and adjusted to achieve the level of comfort Shinji now felt as he sank his body into the unusually comfortable imperial leather.

The carriage he was now sitting inside was a feast for the senses to say the least.  
Spotless velvet gold tablecloths and a velvet red carpet masterfully painted to have a beautiful pattern of flowers along with matching dark red silk curtains were just some of the things that tore his breath away as he saw them. How any room in the post-apocalyptic setting the survivors of two impacts could have so much luxury and pizzazz he would never know.

But he didn't care. In this moment he would relax his jangled nerves to enjoy this terrific ride while pretending the world was safe from Angels and had returned to its former glory.  
Taking one last contented look at the first-class carriage of the luxury train which rivalled the bespoke Titanic in style and beauty, he closed his eyes with a peaceful smile as the train begun to make its way across Tokyo 3. This leather seat was so comfortable.

The question of how Mari gathered the funds to afford such a sweet ride like it was no big deal could also wait. He was just relieved that someone somewhere still cared enough for him to consider him worthy of inclusion in such aristocratic experiences. An act of kindness was an act of kindness no matter who it came from.

The ride did not disappoint. Every motion of the train felt like a pleasant massage to the now contentedly asleep Shinji Ikari whose light smile in his sleep reflected none of the horrific abuse he had endured at the hands of his unappreciative bosses and co-workers at his life-threatening dead-end job.

Fighting angels and piloting the unpredictable and failure prone abominations known as EVA's was so hard. He'd forgotten the pleasure in simple experiences such as this. To be able to rest comfortably during a pleasant train ride without needing to worry about rubbing his tormentors the wrong way. Where he could be his own person without the need to do or say anything to suck up to anyone.

Mari would spend the journey looking over her travelling companion with great admiration. Her superior pilot and the chief of NERV's son had been through so much to get here. Even when everyone had done nothing but spit on his heroic actions and disown him, he was still nothing like his greedy and selfish father.

Shinji was nothing but polite, selfless and honest.

Three qualities that very few still had in these dark times where Angels were attacking but everyone was selling their souls to the devil in a perverted sort of irony. Where Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus for thirty silver pieces was seen as the true prophet that all should aspire to be like.

It had taken her a long time to find him again. But now that she had, Mari promised she would never let him out of her sight again. She would gladly rip apart as many Angels as she had to with her bare hands if it meant seeing his smile.

Asuka could go screw herself for all Mari cared. It was that red-haired brat who was actively ruining Shinji's chance at a normal life and being a bigger problem to the world than the Angel's ever were.

And from this day on Mari silently vowed that if she ever saw that German redhead bully harm so much as one hair on Shinji's head, that Asuka would be served a delicious steaming pile of knuckle sandwiches, Makinami style on the house.

She did not to ask poor Shinji to show her the many wounds he probably still had under his clothes to know that he had been a victim of horrific domestic abuse for far too long now. His friendly but paranoid mannerisms and constant breaks in his voice and inability to make eye contact when he spoke said more than enough. Even if she did need glasses, she was not nearly as blind as her fellow NERV operatives to the horrible abuse that their premiere agent was forced to receive on a day to day basis despite his above average performance that no one bothered to praise him for.

It was a well-documented fact that Shinji Ikari's roommate was known for her violence and quick temper. It was the reason Asuka was able to Synch with the EVA's despite her less than noble intentions.  
It made her a great pilot for the world's deadliest killing machine. It made her a very toxic friend that no one in their right mind would choose to stay with.

"Today I set things right for your son, Yui" Mari whispered sincerely taking care not to wake her still sleeping friend. "Today I liberate him from your evil husband Gendo's grasp and get him far away from that mean girl Asuka (Who you never approved of but were too scared to tell your husband lest you provoke his fearsome wrath). He'll never have to live like this ever again. Things will be better for him now from now on."

The train had gone for another half hour before Shinji lazily stirred himself back to awakening.  
That was one of the best afternoon naps he had for a while.

A waiter had come to the seats where Shinji and Mari sat, asking if they wanted anything to drink as part of their first-class journey.

Mari ordered a chocolate Ice Frappe while the very grateful Shinji shyly ordered an iced lemon tea. It was his favourite beverage but his tiny budget which he had to spend tending to Asuka and Misato's every whim left him no room for any such trivialities in his miserable life.

"Coming right up for you Madam and Sir" the uniformed man gracefully bowed as he left to serve another passenger.

As the train continued to chug pleasantly forward to its destination, Shinji took the moment now that he was well rested to take another brief look at his new unexpected friend and fellow pilot.  
One of the things he loved to do was study everyone he met so he might best determine how he might please them if they turned out to be friendly and not get on their wrong side if they weren't which was very, very often.  
Hard to believe that someone he'd only met now twice, once without exchanging any formal conversation had become closer to him than virtually everyone he had known since the start of his career in NERV.

And attractive too as much ashamed as he was to admit this to himself. It was her cool and sincere crystal teal eyes that sold her appearance to him more than any other part of her.  
Honest and caring eyes complimented by a soft smile which made no attempt to hide that she too had gone through a lot of hardships in her life like the other pilots but had managed somehow not to lose the hope and optimism which very few survivors of the impacts even outside of NERV still held.

The one nit-pick that Shinji could find if any in the uncannily wonderful brunette upon closer inspection was a slight grimace in her otherwise pleasant smile which she continued to regard him with even as he took in these little details in her appearance.

The tell-tale sign of rapidly waning sanity.

It was a simple thing to miss and even a devoted empath such as Shinji could have easily missed it.

But better this smile than the constant sneers and scowls Shinji had all but gotten fed up with having to put up with every day. Perhaps it was better to live a little crazy if it meant not becoming the uncaring jerk of a father he'd given up trying to get along with.

Shinji realized as his drink arrived and he begun to sip it savouring in the heavenly taste he'd all but forgotten, that Mari needed him as much as he needed her.  
He would make sure Mari was never left alone with her own struggles again as long as he was around. He wasn't a psychologist, but he'd do what he could so that one day, the grimace in her smile went away and she could feel the true happiness she deserved for being such a good person.

There were still great struggles ahead for both of them, but he was sure they could face them together.  
He had found his true teammate as Romeo had found his Juliet.

She was his Juvia Lockhart and her heart had locked with his own. And he was her Gray Fullbuster, fully welcoming her attention and sympathies with open arms without hesitation.  
She understood him as no one else did. And that meant a lot to him.

"Thank you for being so nice to me, Mari" Shinji managed to utter. It was an awkward choice of words, but he felt it had to be said.

"Don't mention it Shinji."


	8. Mari's Mansion

**Chapter 8: Mari's Mansion**

_Several years earlier:  
"Look at all the damage you caused to the city Shinji" Major Misato Katsuragi declared angrily, her face twisted into a disdainful sneer as she looked a shocked Shinji ferociously in the eye. "You very nearly caused another impact and you know full well how dangerous that can be."_

_"But I was just doing what you told me to." Shinji nervously piped. "I didn't know that killing that Angel would cause such a massive explosion that…"_

_He was cut off mid-sentence as an impatiently watching Asuka menacingly raised a balled fist._

_"Silence when your superior officer is speaking, stupid" She snarled, her fist still raised as Misato continued to lecture the hero of what had been one of NERV's biggest battles in the past decade against the most terrifying creature Tokyo-3 had seen in a century. _

_Asuka and Rei had both been knocked unconscious by the godlike behemoth minutes into the fight and it was only through sheer refusal to admit defeat that Shinji had ended the monster's life by powering his EVA up to its overdrive state. The result was a dead angel, and half destroyed Tokyo 3 which claimed a steep number of casualties that even years into the future, anyone could only ballpark a guess at. _

_Shinji had expected as he watched the huge explosion caused by the Angel as it died that he would be given a major chewing out from his overbearing father the chief of NERV.  
Instead it was his beloved mother figure Misato who he thought he could trust grilling him for something he thought that at least she of all people would understand._

_"It's over Shinji." Misato angrily sputtered continuing to glare him down. "Your career in NERV is as good as over. The world is as good as over. Tokyo 3 will never be able to recover from what you've just done to it with your reckless antics."_

_"You're such an idiot." Asuka added._

_It was at this moment that a usually calm and collected pacifist finally lost his patience. He had followed every last order to the letter and they still weren't even remotely grateful for how he had single-handedly saved their sorry asses. He could withstand scolding from every stranger he didn't know. He could take the verbal smackdowns handed to him by his terrible father. _

_But Misato was supposed to be his guardian and his best friend who he could depend on to understand him. _

_He looked back at his Major teeth clenched in righteous fury._

_"NOTHING IS OVER!" he shouted furiously at the top of his lungs causing the usually stoic purple haired woman to stagger back slightly in great shock. _

_"Nothing. You just don't turn it off. It wasn't my war. I didn't ask you, you asked me. I only did what I had to do to win. But someone wouldn't let us win. All those maggots in NERV. Protesting me, spitting. Calling me names like baby killer and other vile crap. Who are they to protest me!?  
Who are they!? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!"_

_He was shaking now and sweaty as he continued to look back at Misato and Asuka who by now were regarding their roommate and fellow NERV operative with gaping jaws of disbelief._

_He knew that Asuka would give him a big punch later for this vehement outburst. He knew that Misato would refuse to talk to him or look at him for many days.  
But from the fear in his Major's usually empty eyes, he knew she'd have to be brainless to take any sort of disciplinary action against him for this completely justified speech against the injustice he'd endured for far too long to keep inside._

_But it had all been worth it. For a few seconds that day, he had gotten his two irresponsible roommates off their self-righteous high horses and shown them the truth of how badly they were messing up. It wouldn't last but he was still glad to have these precious seconds where for a change, Misato and Asuka were the ones cowering before him rather than the other way around._

_Sure enough, he was let off with a minor warning from his father and was able to continue actively serving for the next several miserable years of his miserable existence despite his infractions.  
As much as he hated being a NERV pilot, he knew it was the only thing he had going for him. _

…

A few minutes later the exquisite train finally came to a stop in a much smaller station. It was in the outskirts of Tokyo 3.  
The landscape here looked nothing like the inner-city to Shinji as he once again followed Mari past the bowing suit and onto the platform. It was as if he had entered a whole new world.

The air here felt so much cleaner. The sky so much brighter. And the buildings seemed so much less dirty and well-maintained than the crummy apartments and filthy high-rises Shinji had grown accustomed to in his life. And unlike inner Tokyo 3, there were plenty of open pavilions where the masterful architects who had designed this beautiful place had the foresight to leave devoid of structures and provide plenty of space. A few healthy trees lined some of them.

He felt a great sense of freedom as he continued along the platform unable to fathom how perfect this part of the city looked in comparison to the place that he'd called his home for the past several years.  
He really wished he'd have the chance to explore it more as he went through another set of ticket barriers and out of the station onto a very stately looking street graced with plenty of lovely looking shops each with a flashing sign more fancy than the previous one.

Little did he know as Mari continued to lead him through a maze of paths that soon his wish would soon be granted and that he would soon have all the time in the world to explore to his heart's content.

Nothing could impress me now, he thought to himself. These buildings are the finest I'll ever get to see.

He was wrong. Dead wrong.

For before the two EVA pilots stood a lovely field. Devoid of buildings and landmarks and lovely in its emptiness with only grass and flowers to decorate the ground.  
A marble path stretched along the field connecting the concrete pavement of the city with the courtyard of a large mansion with shining golden gates and fine granite walls surrounding it.

Two intricately carved Seraph Angels, the kind from the happy bible stories stood on either side of the gates. Each one with large wings, pleasant grins and welcoming arms pointed at the gates they kept guard over.  
The masonry of this structure put even NERV's headquarters to shame. It tore the breath from Shinji's lungs and he felt light headed and dizzy even to look in the mansion's direction.

He had surely died and gone to heaven. This was surely the gate to heaven and Mari was surely his guardian angel sent to escort him here as reward for the terrible lifetime he'd endured trying to please ungrateful jerks who never once appreciated him.  
This time, he had to pinch himself.

"And here we are at my house." Mari announced, snapping Shinji from his euphoria induced trance.  
"Do you like it?"

"I, I love it." Shinji managed to reply through his euphoric confusion. "It's a nice house".

"I'm very grateful you say that Shinji. We'll go in and then I'll tell you the reason why I needed you here. I couldn't tell you in front of the other people from NERV. I'm afraid Shinji, that we can't trust them, and I'll explain why."

Had any other person on planet Earth said the same thing in the same tone of voice, Shinji would have immediately turned tail to run as quickly as his legs would carry him.  
While he did not like or trust NERV either after the terrible mistreatment he'd received over his years as part of it, he did grimly acknowledge that it was the only organisation keeping mankind safe with it's EVA's that it alone had the expertise and resources to access.

And though he didn't want to be a part of NERV, he did want to protect humanity and his friends. Especially Rei Ayanami, the one girl who'd shown him any compassion before Mari came on the scene.

Shinji took another look at the brown-haired English woman who was now unlocking the golden gate with a sparkly golden key.

He saw a teammate who had been more sympathetic to him than even Rei had been.  
A chess master who would have made a better leader than Major Misato and General Gendo combined.  
And if such a thing were possible, he saw a true evangelist with more kindness than both Juvia Lockhart and Lucy Heartfilla put together.

His two favourite film characters from his favourite childhood films couldn't match the niceness and compassion Mari had shown him in the few hours they'd spent together. And unlike Juvia and Lucy, Mari was completely real while Juvia and Lucy were but figments of his troubled mind he constructed to keep himself from insanity.

Shinji knew that from the second this meeting begun his decision had already been made. To back out now was to do both himself and the world a great disservice and to truly become the cowardly chicken everyone labelled him as.  
He would put every bit of his trust in Mari, trusting her more than he trusted himself.

He would find the answer to his question of why NERV couldn't be trusted soon anyway. Not that this news came as a surprise to him but to hear it from an outside perspective would be important. It was time to finally find the truth. And it didn't matter where he heard it from.

"That would be fine with me, Mari." Shinji stated as he followed her into the grand white fortress behind the golden gates which looked straight out of a fairy tail.  
He had seen a fancy train today along with a fancy neighbourhood. A fancy guildhall was next.  
Was his luck today ever going to run out?

The grand oak doors of the house were unlocked long before Mari and Shinji had crossed the courtyard which was surprisingly plain for an abode so fair. A nice stone fountain did find itself in the middle of the yard but though it was still in good condition, Shinji could tell it had not been used in a very long time.

A younger girl stood awaiting the pair at the doorway, her hand held out in a very formal manner and her welcoming expression cordial but focused. It was clear she had been greeting important aristocrats her whole life, titans of the world with more influence than even the chief of NERV himself. Her uncannily polished manner nearly made Shinji blush with embarrassment. Was this the treatment he would start receiving in his dad's place if by some stroke of luck, he one day took over NERV?

"Welcome, Mr Ikari Sir. Welcome to the Makinami Mansion." The girl intoned, dropping a slight curtsey.  
Her odd choice of apparel, a classic white Sailor Outfit tinged with the same brown as her pale brown hair along with a very hot brown Miniskirt made her smooth gestures even more striking.

Her high brown boots had probably been the final accessory which put her on the front cover of every known fashion magazine. Shinji would be seeing her in his dreams, and she hadn't even introduced herself to him as Mari had yet.

"Um thank you." was the only reply he could muster. As much as he liked the genuine kindness the two girls, he had only just met today were showing him, he wasn't sure he could take much more of the aristocratic treatment. "And please, just call me Shinji."

"Please come in Shinji. You must be tired from the journey. And you must be hungry by now as well."

The one question haunting Shinji's otherwise euphoric mind as he heard those words.  
Was this incredibly adorable Sailor outfit toting girl a mind reading psychic?

Years of salary cut after salary cut from his superior's in NERV combined with Asuka's increasingly insatiable appetite for the finest delicacies' money could buy left Shinji very little money for himself.  
He had walked hungry plenty of days in his life by now including today.  
Sometimes because he didn't even have the money to buy any food for himself, mostly because by the time he'd finished serving Asuka and Misato's meals he had no energy left for his own.

The growling in his stomach had gotten louder and louder throughout the day and though he didn't want to admit it out of fear of seeming rude to his new friend Mari, he felt as if he might keel over in weakness any moment now.

Third child and third pilot of NERV Shinji Ikari. A famous military leader with a body as thin as that of the unluckiest beggar. The perfect illustration for a poster begging the world to feed the poor refugees from a drought filled desert of a corrupt and totalitarian third world country.

"We've prepared a very special meal for you." She stated without waiting for him to speak. "Please head to the dining room to your left."

Shinji would have once again thanked this incredibly polite maid for her hospitality to the humble lowlife he considered himself, but another terrible throe of pain in his tummy struck him and he merely nodded gratefully as he walked holding his drooping head as highly as he could into the room she had suggested for him.

An unbelievable apparition that would amaze even the heaven's themselves met the starving urchin's trembling eyes which did everything in their power to convince him that this was just an illusion.

A sight that made the tears of pure bliss that had been building in his ducts the moment he met Mari finally flood down his cheeks in a seemingly unstopping cascade which he could not dam up however hard he tried.

Never once in his entire life had the premiere pilot of NERV seen so many lovely platters of food loaded onto a single massive table which would have made even the mightiest of EVA's seem insignificant. It was as if this magnificent banquet which held more dishes than he could shake a stick at was made to feed the entirety of Tokyo 3.

The familiar scent of fried noodles mixed with seafood and marinated beef filled his nostrils. It was just one of many great smells contesting for his attention in a sea of countless others however.

The gateau in the corner even had the words "Happy Early Birthday Shinji. Love from Sakura and Mari" written in cherry flavoured icing.

And there was a pizza. Double peperoni, double meatballs and double olives cooked in basil oil and seasoned with extra hot chilli sauce. His three favourite toppings in one. No disgusting anchovies or mushrooms which he couldn't stand.  
It conjured up the image of an Italian plumber with a moustache and a red hat and overalls stomping Goomba after Goomba and Koopa after Koopa.

"It's a me" Shinji could not stop himself from whispering, ridiculous as that sounded.

And there was the fried Tofu.  
And over there, the German Sausage "the bratwurst" which once again Asuka never let him have a bite of.  
The lovely meat and cheese pie Shinji knew to be "A four cheese Lasagne" which would have kept even Garfield satisfied for a month.  
And Pork buns? How did Mari get hold of a Chinese national dish from here in Japan?

He could go on and on trying to name as many of these mouth-watering treats but his famine snapped him back to attention.

"Eat up Shinji" Mari encouraged, looking at the happily weeping Shinji like he was Superman himself "This meal was prepared specially for you as our way of saying thank you for all the good things you've done. Your amazing skills as a pilot have not gone unnoticed. Your heroic efforts weren't wasted."

Without bothering to reply, Shinji immediately grabbed the shiny silver spoon and fork set neatly before him on the table and begun to dig away at the ambrosial treasure hoard before him.  
His joyful tantrum had more than expressed his thanks for yet another act of kindness given to the loathsome idiot that he was cursed to be labelled as until the day he died.

He chomped away at one dish while chewing at another. He slurped from this bowl while gulping mouthful after mouthful from that one.  
It was just like the team of mercenaries in Fairy tail would do after a job well done vanquishing a great evil. And the usually reserved and disciplined Wendy Marvell got the most drunk of them all.

He was Gray Fullbuster trying to beat Natsu in a drinking contest as he chugged down glass after glass of beverages not caring to discover their contents.

He was Naruto Uzumaki celebrating after finally being crowned Hokage after too long as he slammed down a conveniently placed bowl of superhot extra chilli Ramen, breathing out a hellish blast of flames from his mouth after he finished.

The fire hit a corner of the purple tablecloth very nearly igniting it as the ever-prepared butler Sakura Suzuhara threw a tub of **extra flammable cooking oil** onto the viciously burning cloth extinguishing it **instantaneously.**

"Nice shot Sakura" Mari proudly cheered.

The Tokyo fire department had lost out on a great business opportunity by not hiring her.

And then he transformed into Usagi Tsukino also known as the cry baby meatball head Sailor Moon as he concluded his first decent meal in a lifetime with a gigantic tub of mango flavoured ice cream.  
Which he poured onto the Schwarzwalde gateau even Asuka had never gotten lucky enough to taste, and poured the crudely mixed desserts down his gullet before swallowing in one breath.

He would have quite the time bragging about this to Asuka. For once in his life he finally held the bragging rights.

"How badly you must have been mistreated in your life, Shinji" Mari thought to herself as she watched him patiently and respectfully from a nearby chair.  
"I always knew NERV to be greedy and corrupt but this, this is just unacceptable. Oh Shinji. If it means seeing you this happy again, I promise you that you can have this meal every day from now on."

"And I'll be more than happy to make each one of those meals more amazing and delicious than the previous one." Sakura thought, sitting on another chair looking as proud as if she'd cured Cancer.  
"I'll read every single cookbook ever written and I'll go to the ends of the Earth to smuggle the ingredients. You deserve it Shinji, even if my brother thinks you're nothing but a monster he told me to stay away from"

"Please don't listen to him Shinji" Sakura silently sobbed as she finished that last thought. "Toji's not been himself since mom died. He doesn't know what he's talking about but I do. In fact, Shinji, don't listen to anyone from NERV unless we say you can."

The two girls waited for Shinji to finally finish eating in polite silence. It was the least anyone could do for the hero who had single-handedly prevented the destruction of the world countless times.

Eventually the boy put down the last bowl on the table and announced with great gravity that he had finished.  
The table which was full of food when he had come in had been emptied to the last crumb, but his hunger had finally been appeased.

"My compliments to the chef" he humbly declared before turning back to the still silently watching Mari.

"Sorry about my lack of manners" he apologized hoping he hadn't offended her with his feeding frenzy induced by years of starvation and mistreatment which had finally boiled over today. "I was really hungry and couldn't control myself. Please forgive me."

"Don't be sorry. We're just glad you enjoyed the meal." Mari happily barked.

"Yeah… Well what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Mari."

Mari's goofy smile quickly became taciturn and serious and the colour seemed to flood from her rosy cheeks.  
"We'll discuss this in the living room. It's a long story."

"Of course". Though he was still stuffed from the feast, he knew that he needed to hear this as soon as possible.

The two NERV pilots walked out of the now very messy dining room hand in hand, a mutual sign of trust and respect that very few citizens in the chaos of the post impact wasteland still performed.  
"Get everything cleaned up Sakura and start the bath for Shinji." Mari ordered as they went.

"Hai! Right away". Sakura replied, bringing her hand up to her forehead in a military style salute that Shinji wasn't sure whether to find funny, endearing, dark and serious or all three.

A few moments later, the duo sat facing each other on expensive leather couches in a brightly illuminated room whose brown walls were lined with paintings in all kinds of different styles.

It was Mari who spoke first as Shinji held his tongue facing her with wide open eyes and his undivided attention that completely disregarded every aspect of the lavishly decorated gallery of a room he now found himself in.

"What I'm about to tell you is going to sound completely ridiculous. I know that. And I also know you probably have no reason to trust me seeing as you've just met me.  
But please, understand that I care about you Shinji. Nothing matters to me if it means you can't be happy Shinji. So please, try to take everything I say with at least the benefit of the doubt."

"I trust you Mari." Shinji proudly insisted in a powerful voice filled with conviction not typical of a self-hating introvert who had never had much human contact outside of being mocked. "Right now, I trust you more than any other person on this Earth including myself. I've seen a lot of not normal things in my life Mari, more than I'd care to admit. Nothing you say, I won't at least try to believe."

"Then trust me, when I tell you that all of your loved ones are in terrible danger right now. That Asuka, Rei, Misato and all of the people you hold dear are all walking right into a trap. And trust me when I say that your father Gendo is misusing his power in the worst way possible to bring about the end of the world as we know it." Not one word out of Mari's lips had any sort of triviality to it. It was probably this factor that prevented Shinji from laughing out loud at these far-fetched accusations.

His father was a mean man. In other news, water was wet.

Asuka, Rei and Misato as NERV agents were in danger, in a job where danger had to be your middle name to qualify. In other news, sand was sandy.

But a trap? And the end of the world?

"NERV and SEELE are in cahoots and your father wants to give in to SEELE's demands completely." Mari continued, keeping her voice soft but serious.  
"HE wants the human instrumentality program to succeed so he can bring your mother Yui back to life. But what even he doesn't know is that SEELE have no intention of holding up their part of the bargain. They're playing him for a fool and he's trying to play us for fools as well. "

"Wait, WHAT?" Shinji sputtered, unable to keep the tension that had been rising within him since the mention of his mother's maiden name. He had always known that a big part of his father and by extension his own brooding came from the death of who he could only assume from the little he heard about her to be the perfect wife and the greatest woman any son could ask for.

But if what Mari was trying to tell him was true, then that man had crossed a line you simply did not cross. And SEELE?

"Your father wants to kill everyone including you because he can't get over the fact your mother sacrificed herself to protect the world so you could have a shot at a happy life" Mari summarized for him bluntly.

"Um, well. How can you know all this? How do you know my mother?" Shinji had always had an inkling that he and Mari were connected in some meaningful way. He had brushed it off as his foolish mind playing tricks on him. But she knew his mother's name. That couldn't be pure coincidence.

"That's not important right now. We can discuss that later. But for now, all you need to know is that I owe my life to your mother. She saved me. Losing her, was like losing my own mother twice. Without her, I would not be here to have this conversation with you right now Shinji."

This person owed that person their life. And that one owed the other person their life. Blood debts. The deepest emotional connection any two people could have with each other. Blood of the covenant was thicker than water of the womb.

"What about SEELE? Who are SEELE?" Shinji asked next, realizing this was the more important question right now. He had heard this name mentioned a few times while he was waiting outside his father's office for another scolding, but it had always been in a quiet and muffled voice as if it didn't want to be heard.

"I could go on and on about them, but the one thing you need to know Shinji is that they're a group of crazies with bad news bears written all over them. You let them win, and you can kiss your friends and family goodbye. You die, I die, we all die, bye bye."

"Um… I see."

"It's not too late Shinji. We can still set everything back right again. We can stop SEELE and save your friends. But you have to trust me. You have to believe in me."

"There must be some way out of here!" Shinji suddenly cried clenching his fists, the heroic words of a true legend slipping from his mouth without passing through his brain.

It was then that a ghost of a smile crossed Mari's stern and serious grimace as time itself seemed to come to a stop. Shinji's words had awakened the beginning new era of genuine hope.

She bounded to her feet and placed her hand on Shinji's shoulder. He welcomed her touch. He was not afraid of her the way he was afraid of Asuka, Misato and even Rei. She would not betray him the way he feared everyone else would.

"Said the Joker to the thief. Shinji. Said the Joker to the thief".

_And the end of another chapter as Shinji continues to find more happiness still. It's about time that poor guy got some respect for all the good he's done.  
I feel that Evangelion 3.0 did not do justice for the character of Mari whatsoever. She approved of all the mean things Asuka did to Shinji when in the previous movie, she seemed genuinely regretful for all the atrocities she and the other NERV pilots were committing and was one of the few characters to give any supportive words to Shinji to get his fighting spirit back. _

_They really should have toned the mean-spiritedness in that one down a lot. I'm beginning to think the End of Evangelion handled things better since not every character was a selfish jerk in that one and Asuka actually had the courtesy not to punch Shinji in the face and Misato actually gave Shinji some motherly love._

_ Ironic how Anno wrote better when he was mentally unstable. But then we wouldn't have Mari. _

_Props to StraightedgeEpyon and Fictionelement777 for reviewing by the way. Really love you guys for all your kind input. _


	9. Premonition

**Chapter 9: Premonition. **

"I knew I could count on you." Mari cheerfully exclaimed as she kept her hand on Shinji's shoulder while gently gazing into his blue eyes with a whole new level of admiration. "Nothing can stop us if we work together. We can finish what your mum started, together"

"We can. I know we can. The only question is how? How do the two of us go against two groups as powerful as NERV and SEELE. We're just two kids. Even if we use our EVA's, they'll just smash us like a bug." Shinji's sudden surge of confidence begun to die down as he finished his bleak opinion.

"That can come later Shinji. Right now, you need to rest. You need a break from all the hard work NERV has put you through so you can recover your strength again. No use trying to do anything when you clearly aren't in top shape after all you've been through."

"But if SEELE are planning to kill everyone, don't we have to start trying to stop them as soon as possible? How can we possibly relax at a time like this, Mari? You said yourself that my friends are already in danger, so we need to help them."

"There's no rush Shinji. There really isn't." Mari said soothingly. "If we run out there guns blazing without first getting all our strength back, we'll be shot before we've gone a yard. Not to mention, you can't synch with your EVA if your mental state isn't good enough. You cannot and I repeat, you cannot pilot effectively in your current frame of mind after the horrors NERV has put you through. "

"So what do you think we should do next then, Mari?"

"For now, nothing. You need to take a few days off. Don't worry Shinji. I have plans. But right now, you're in no shape to do anything."

Shinji had not noticed the sky getting darker and darker outside as his first friendly conversation in years had continued. He now knew so much he didn't before, and that in itself made things different for him in a good way.  
Now his superiors in NERV could no longer catch him in the web of lies he'd spent too long for his own good trapped in.  
Now he truly could begin to rebuild the world for the better with a true good friend beside him.

But he concurred with Mari's suggestion completely as a gargantuan yawn slipped uncontrollably out of his mouth. For now, he did need a break from saving the world.  
Even God rested on Sunday after all.

"You should go upstairs now. Sakura's probably finished preparing the bath for you. Take your time there and then you can get ready for bed. There's a room upstairs we've reserved for you. Sakura will show you to it."

"I'll do that." Shinji's tired brain was already dancing at the prospect of finally getting his first warm wash in weeks. Asuka and Misato always used up all the limited water in their apartment which had recently restricted its water supply to save on money which it had to pay to NERV.  
NERV's high prices had taken its toll on his hygiene too.

Everything was going his way today.

"Well, I guess this is goodnight then Mari."

"I guess it is, but I'll see you again tomorrow morning."

"That sounds good."

Shinji had nearly left the room to begin the luxurious ascent up the classily carpeted staircase to the next floor when Mari addressed him.

"And Shinji. One more thing which you need to know."

"Yeah?"

"Your mother, Yui isn't dead. She's still very much alive and with you. She has been all this time."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Shinji tried to ask before another mammoth sized yawn interrupted him.

"I'll explain in more detail tomorrow Shinji. But for now, you just need to know that your mother never really left you. She still loves you very much and there is a chance we can still get her back. But all that will come later."

"Um, alright then. Goodnight" Shinji yawned as he wearily lumbered out the door and up the stairs unsure of what to make of this unexpected revelation which came off as being stranger than even the other off the wall information he was still struggling to digest.

His mother died in a lab accident from what he officially heard from his NERV superiors.  
And even if he was willing to believe everything else Mari had told him, he could not grasp the idea that the dead could come back to life.

But he had promised Mari he would try to believe her. Whatever Mari was trying to imply here, her intentions could be nothing less than noble. And that was all that mattered. If she believed that his mother was somewhere out there not beyond saving, he would believe it with her.

If everything else she told him was indeed true, it wouldn't come as a surprise for NERV to have once again lied to him. But his tired state was not the right mindset to try and puzzle this problem out further. The hot steam escaping from under the beautifully carved doorway before him was beckoning him and he quickly threw all his remaining questions aside as he happily opened the door.

A lovely aroma wafted through the luxuriously spacious bathroom the dirty and tired boy now found himself inside. The smell of expensive herbs reserved for only the wealthiest elites of the finest five-star resorts being placed into a perfectly heated large tub of water.

The boy felt full of life here taking in the refined odour of herbs at the perfect temperature amidst the fog of extremely calming steam. Another one of the few truly happy memories he would think back to when he was sitting crippled and bleeding in his cramped and noisy EVA trying not to be eaten alive.

"Leave your clothes on the chair Shinji. I'll take care of them for you and I'll get you some new clothes by the time you're finished." The melodious voice of Sakura Suzuhara gently instructed as she appeared from a corner of the room obscured by the steam. "We hope you enjoy your stay at the Makinami Spa. The bedroom Is just on the right next to this room."

She politely gave another one of her signature curtseys and courteously exited the room allowing Shinji to change uninterrupted. Shinji cracked a grin as he put his old and filthy clothes which had not been washed for weeks on the chair near the doorway as instructed.

Just as Mari was not another Asuka, Sakura was not another Misato. His Major would have given him no privacy as she undressed to her underwear right before his eyes not realizing the psychological damage this caused a sensitive introvert such as himself.

She'd also never have offered to do anything as kind as finally taking care of the chores in the house for a change after noticing how badly knackered his daily battles had left him.

Misato never was and never would be a replacement for his late mother Yui. This was a cold, hard fact which Shinji had tried without success many times to come to terms with and was still unable to fully accept even now as he finished placing his clothes in a neat pile on the chair and delicately lowered himself into the refreshing herb infused waters of the spacious bath allowing the perfected combination of moisture and heat to caress his injured and filthy body.

At least as many of the injuries came from Asuka's constant beatdowns against him as from his fights with the Angels.

It felt even better than he thought it would as he gently closed his eyes, as much to stop another fresh flow of joyful tears as to enjoy the hot and comfortable bath he thought he'd never get to have. This was the life. And while he had told himself that he'd stay here just one day tops, he felt this was one promise he could consider breaking if this was the excellent treatment he would be receiving here.

Asuka and Misato clearly didn't care about him enough to value his company so he would give them exactly what they asked for. He would leave them alone so they would not have to endure his presence a second longer if it caused them so much pain. They could have the entire apartment to themselves and do their own thing without him being a third wheel.

He resolutely vowed to himself as he took a few of the body cleaning fluids placed by the side of the tub and rubbed them carefully onto himself that this time, Asuka really had used up her last chance with him. He would not take her back or go back to her no matter how hard she begged or pleaded or cried.  
She could say she was sorry a hundred times in a row, and he'd not buy a word of her bull anymore.

Actions spoke louder than words and Asuka's punches clearly demonstrated she did not want him around.

As an old song of his went, now that he had found a real love she would never fool him again.

Asuka had given him nothing but her utter contempt and violence while Mari and Sakura promised him the world, the galaxy and beyond.

Comparing Asuka with Mari was like comparing a black tooth full of cracks to a glistening white one without a single dent in it.  
Like trying to pick between a red box with the words "STAY AWAY!" printed in bold on it and the much prettier white box next to it with "Safe" on it instead. Only an idiot would pick wrongly there and as much as Asuka liked to think he was one, he wasn't.

There was still Rei's place to determine in this equation. Rei genuinely seemed to be at least a reasonably nice person unlike Asuka and she did regard him with a soft smile during the few times they were lucky enough to meet when his father wasn't using her for his own selfish ends.

It would be unfair, thought Shinji as he sank back into the bath now that he was fully cleaned from head to toe, to put her in the same boat as the brutal German Redhead he now had no respect for.  
She'd be thrown overboard by Asuka to drown before the boat had even gotten a yard from the docks.  
The blue haired girl had bourn her tragic past much better than Asuka and had never insulted him the way Asuka did. That was worthy of his respect.

Whether that was enough to make her good girl friend material to him was now the question.  
Before tonight he would have said yes but now, he was once again stuck at a crossroad.  
And it went without saying that unlike his father, Shinji could not simply choose more than one romantic partner at a time.

A few comfortable moments later spent soaked in the bath, Shinji finally thought he had constructed the perfect mental image of Rei's position in his current life circumstances.  
If Asuka represented the black and badly cracked tooth in his mouth which was doing nothing but causing him a lot of pain while doing no good whatsoever, then Rei was the slightly chipped yellow tooth between Asuka and the undamaged white tooth representing newcomer Mari Makinami.

He could chew with a slightly damaged yellow tooth but not take confident and comfortable bites as he could with a pearly white one which had never suffered wear and tear.

And if in the pile of Christmas presents some good and others bad Asuka represented the danger box of "Stay away!" and Mari the only good present given by a trustworthy friend of "Safe!", Rei could best be summarized as the suspect and mysterious grey container of "Maybe" sent to him by neither friend nor enemy but a completely anonymous third party he had never met in his life and who had never met him.

It sounded straight of a bad and cheesy movie. But "Maybe" wasn't going to cut it for Shinji in these desperate times where each day could easily be his last.  
It wasn't good enough and he would be lying to even himself if he insisted that "Maybe" was better "Safe!". When every day his chances of returning from the EVA vs Angel battlefield got lower, "Maybe" was the worst word his friend let alone his partner could tell him about their relationship together even worse than "Stay away!" since at least those words were honest if nothing else.

"I'm sorry Rei, and I'm not sorry Asuka" he whispered as he finally begun to rise from the now slightly cooled lukewarm water to reach for the large towel Sakura had placed for him on a hook nearby.  
"But Mari is the one for me. I can't wait any longer for either of you. Not when I might die tomorrow. I gave you both more chances than I can count and you both threw them away."

He wiped himself clean and expectantly found a fresh pair of soft and silky striped pyjamas waiting for him on the chair where he'd put his old clothes. They fit him like a second skin.

After a quick but thorough brush of his teeth which had also gone uncleaned for many days thanks to his salary cuts from NERV, he walked to the bedroom which was conveniently located just beside the bathroom he had just been in to find Sakura waiting for him on the big and colourful bed.

"Please lie down and let me give you a massage, Mr Ikari Sir." She said. "It will help relieve your stress greatly."

Usually this would be where Shinji worriedly shook his head too afraid to take off his clothes to accept something he knew would benefit him, but Sakura's earnest voice and expression gave him the necessary confidence to strip off his pyjamas leaving only his pants as he sank his now much cleaner but still very stressed and tense body into the sheets which were as exquisite as everything else in the mansion.

He said nothing as Sakura placed some cream onto her hands and begun to roll it firmly but soothingly onto his back, followed by his neck and then his shoulder. It was not necessary. The peace and contentment in his face said more than a library of books.  
The tension left on him by repeated assaults both physical and verbal from Asuka as well as the standard battle scars typical of all EVA pilots made worse by his virtue of being the best pilot given the hardest part of every mission, was becoming just a faint bad memory he wasn't sure was even real in the first place.

Every rub of his skin made him feel younger. He wondered if these were the sensations a baby him would have enjoyed from his now dead loving mother.  
If only he had been mature enough back, then not to take his babyhood for granted and fully savour every second knowing now what would come later.

His feet were next. Sakura proved to be as much a master paediatrician as she was a master firefighter and butler as she massaged the pressure points on Shinji's feet with uncanny skill which made him sob and sigh quietly uncontrollably in blissful euphoria.

She kept this going for the next half hour, clearly waiting for Shinji's stress level to be lowered far enough for the usually sleepless and overstressed war hero to finally fall asleep.  
She knew that without this, he'd spend another night stirring and fidgeting unable to fully rest himself despite his tiredness.  
It was only when the quiet sounds of Shinji's tranquil snores begun to echo that she finally stopped, put covers onto the boy who was for once in his life sleeping peacefully and gave him a gentle pat and a peck on his cheek.

A very daring and perhaps even slightly inappropriate action but Sakura could see from the emptiness in Shinji's hollow eyes even when he was content and truly happy that he hadn't been kissed or hugged enough as a child.  
She needed him to know that even if his dad openly despised him and his mother could no longer be with him that there were still kindred spirits in the world who would love him the way a good parent should love their children.

"Sleep well, Shinji. We love you." She whispered before tiptoeing out the bedroom to take one final glance back at the pleasantly asleep hero of the world before silently shutting the door.

**HHHHHHHHH**

While the boy's expression remained peaceful and his body still, his mind was far from empty as he passed into the land of dreams.

Even asleep and not paying full attention, he knew that this was no ordinary dream from how clear the images were. It was like he was sitting in bed watching a movie play out rather than receiving a blurry set of subliminal blurs transmitted to him by a not fully conscious mind which was simply playing games with him.

He somehow in his dream managed to shake himself awake enough to pay close attention as the visage of a small and malnourished girl in a purple skirt, purple boots and a white Sailor outfit with a dark purple collar appeared before him. In her left hand she carried a comedically large glaive with a dark purple pole and a razor-sharp edge which looked like could cut steel like butter.

A dark sky illuminated by a few shining white dots surrounded them both. The cold and almost empty vacuum of Space, the final frontier.

Her short but very pretty hair seemed at first to be black but as she drew closer to him, Shinji could see it was in fact very dark purple. The same purple as a large part of her outfit.  
And as the dream ended and reality begun, this mysterious girl fixed her until now downward gaze upon Shinji looking him straight on.  
Her frown slowly became a respectful smile as she locked her sight upon the shocked and flabbergasted dreamer.

**HHHHHHHHHHH**

He briefly caught sight off a golden sphere behind her surrounded by what appeared to be a thin ring as reality finally caught him and he jolted awake.

"What was that?" he asked unable to think of a better choice of word to say to himself after this unworldly spectacle which had somehow entered his dreams.  
It all felt so real despite the fact it was not real and it didn't leave him with the discomfort and muscle pains a nightmare would for he felt wide awake and refreshed despite the confusing dream he had just had.

The sky although still dark was beginning to dawn. Shinji could see that the sun was beginning to show its first rays upon the still nearly pitch-black Tokyo 3 outside the window.

He would usually at this time start his tiresome daily routine as the errand boy of the household, making breakfast and cleaning the clothes for his two ungrateful roommates and co-workers.  
But jokes on them, he was not in their apartment today and thus didn't have to pick up their slack for a change.

For the first time in his life, he could perform his daily schedule his way without objection.  
And the first item on his schedule was quite simply to go back to sleep until his body was fully rested.

"I wonder what that dream was about" he muttered more curious than anxious to himself as he walked back to the bed to get some more sleep before the first truly pleasant day of his miserable life fully begun. "It felt so real."

As he made his way back to bed, his eyes slid briefly past a large mirror placed near the wall by his bed.

It was still very dark but there was no mistaking that the reflection peering back from the other side of the glass was not his own.  
Shinji's heart slammed as he dared himself to draw a little closer for a look.

The girl from his dreams, was there, in the mirror, LOOKING AT HIM.

And the ringed golden sphere he had only had a brief moment to see before his dream concluded was still there behind her.  
It wasn't an ordinary sphere at all. It was a planet.

The planet Saturn.

_Please enjoy and review. And props to James Birdsong, fictionelement77 and StraightedgeEpyon for reviewing and giving me so much encouragement. Thank you so much you guys._


	10. Bonding between two buddies

**Chapter 10: Bonding between two buddies. **

_"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with" – Anon._

This time there was no dream to interrupt the remainder of his sleep which lasted till the sky outside had matured into a bright and hopeful blue with the sun shining as brightly as ever. It would be a good day outside today in Tokyo 3 in terms of weather at least.

He woke up and waltzed giddily to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth, feeling a sense of pride and power he had not felt in many years since being pressed into NERV.  
It was a new beginning for Shinji Ikari in every sense of the word.

**…**

While the ecstatic boy hummed an upbeat tune as warm water soaked his very comfortable body, Asuka and Misato were going about their morning business as usual having shrugged off Shinji's spur of the moment excuse of going to see a friend for the evening like it was pure coincidence.  
Lucky for him that they didn't really care much for his company after all.

Misato simply took out a pot of instant noodles and put it in the rundown microwave while Asuka emptied out another box of Stollen cake. Neither of them cared to admit that they did indeed miss their errand boy's superb cooking.  
"Forget him" the German had insisted when during a brief moment of lucidity, the purple haired Major asked where Shinji was this morning. "He's probably knocking himself out with whatever dumb friend was stupid enough to let him into their house. Let's not worry about that brat."

A pot of noodles and a can of beer later and Misato had forgotten every bit of her momentary concern for her adoptive son as dizziness came over her once again and she dropped her head to the table, hitting it with a loud crash which shook the room. She would wake up hours later to find her saliva covering the entire table and a skull splitting headache which wouldn't go away for the rest of the day.

One more day where she didn't notice Shinji's absence out of thoughtless apathy. One more day she'd come to regret with every ounce of her being when she finally snapped out of the alcohol induced stupor that she'd lived the majority of her life stuck inside.

Little did Asuka know as she nonchalantly tucked into the expensive German pastry, she had bought using Shinji's salary that her total lack of concern for an innocent young boy would soon come to bite her in the butt. And when her long overdue discipline finally arrived, it would strike the badly-behaved red-haired bully all the harder.

**…**

"Morning Shinji" Mari chipperly sang as her dearest guest finally made his morning appearance at the breakfast table still in his blue and white pyjamas. "Sleep well?" She was clad in a matching set of green pyjamas knowing that it was unlikely the two of them would be going anywhere today.

"Like a log, Mari. Thanks for asking" He considered briefly telling her about his otherworldly dream he had last night despite his top-quality sleep but upon smelling the delicious sausage egg muffin and maple syrup coated waffles placed upon an expensive china plate, eventually brushed it aside as he sat down to eat another prim and proper aristocratic meal.

Sakura was sitting in another chair beside Mari looking admiringly at him as she chastely and carefully ate her own breakfast taking especial care not to slurp or make chewing noises.  
A true mark of the impeccable etiquette of a true butler.

The three friends ate in silence not wanting to spoil the serenity that a blessed meal eaten in the blessed dining hall of the Makinami Mansion was supposed to bring its diners.  
Beautiful sunlight shone down upon them as the first and most important meal of the day was finished in solemn contemplation and sincere gratitude to the heavens themselves.

"Well Shinji. What do you want to do today?" Mari inquisitively asked as Sakura once again took the dirty dishes and cutlery to the kitchen to be cleaned.  
"This is your first day off. How do you want to spend it?"

"Well how do you want to spend the day?" Shinji shyly replied. Asuka and Misato's constant naggings had worn him down and he'd long surrendered trying to suggest a day's activities in either of their presences. Even on the few paid days off his miserly father gave him he had no choice but to spend it working his back off for his two roommates who worked him very hard.  
He would spend the entirety of what was meant to be his holiday wishing an Angel would launch an attack on Tokyo 3 so that he'd have any excuse to get out of the apartment.

Mari seemed to realize his lack of enthusiasm before he even finished the sentence as she lowered her usually excited and bouncy voice a little.  
"It's up to you Shinji. This is your day. You've earned this. I don't mind as long as it makes you feel better. So, come on Shinji. Pick an activity already and let's rock and roll. I'm sure whatever you like, I'll like as well."

"I don't really know. This is the first time I've had a day off in my life so I'm really not sure."

"Well, what are your hobbies? What have you been wanting to do since as far back as you can remember but never gotten to when your work got in the way?  
What makes you, you? Let's start from there."  
A statement closed the mind. A question opened it and forced the mind to think harder. As much as Mari wished they could have as many of these free days as they liked, the Angels could attack at any time as could SEELE. Gendo Ikari could be evilly plotting in his office right now hatching his next devious ploy on how to double cross his own son.  
Whatever project the two of them dedicated this day to could therefore be nothing less than Shinji's grandest desire. Anything else and they had wasted precious time they could never have back while their enemies made their next move.

Today was about Shinji, not her. He needed to give her his full consent before they got started on anything.

The questions had their intended encouraging effect and a nostalgic and wistful beam crossed Shinji's handsome face as he put his finger to his forehead.

"Well. I've always liked to play Video Games. But with Asuka and Misato constantly pestering me for this and that on my days off, I never get to do it. And even if I did have time, we don't even have a computer or a TV for that matter in our apartment anymore."

"What are your favourites?"

"Well…I'm not picky. I would be really happy to play anything as long as it's fun and enjoyable especially if a friend could join me. I guess a good beat em up. I'm not sure."

"A good beat-em you say. Well let's go to my game room and we'll see what I have."

The two pilots reached the snazzy room in question with a hop skip and a jump.  
It was black with thick curtains which perfectly blocked the sun from outside allowing for a flawless view of the big plasma TV screen in front of the black sofa even on a sunny day such as this one.  
A neatly arranged bookcase stood inconspicuously touching the far wall from the one doorway into the relatively small room.

"What would you say the greatest animated series in all time was to you?" Mari asked as she went towards the bookcase in question which Shinji only now realized was filled with box upon box of discs.  
"If you had all the time in the world, what would be the one series you spend all of it watching?"

It took the usually indecisive doormat but a second to formulate a firm and certain reply.

"Fairy Tail" he asserted with more confidence than he had shown in his entire lifetime till now. "No question, no when and no how. Definitely Fairy Tail"

"And what makes it your favourite?" Mari quizzically inquired as she ran her hand delicately across the section of the bookcase marked "F". Her turned back hid the massive Cheshire cat grin he had given her by being the first man of culture to share just one common interest with her.  
She just had to hear more in case he really did think alike to her.

"I like the characters." He humbly explained overjoyed that he had found someone somewhere with whom he could discuss his pastimes. "I like the way they respect each other and how they work together as a team. No one gets left behind. No one gets made into the punching bag of the group. (Unlike me when Asuka gets into one of her moods and unlike NERV where everyone only cares about their next paycheque) "

"Is that all?" The brunette's finger settled upon a gilded box whose very spine was decorated with more emblems than a Sports team banner. She begun to carefully pull it from the shelf, brushing away a little of the dust that had settled on it from years of disuse as she did so.

"Some of the architecture in Fairy Tail is really pretty (kind of like your mansion which you were kind enough to let me into. It would have made a really great guildhall for Fairy Tail)."

"There's one more thing, Shinji. I know there is. It's alright, you can tell me. We're friends. I won't judge you.". There was always one more reason avid fans of the franchise liked it so much. And Mari knew the only reason Shinji didn't confidently say it out loud was because of the terrible damage the condescending insults of Asuka, Misato and his father had left on him through years of mistreatment. He needed to know that here in her mansion, his opinions would be given the full weight they were worth.

"Well…" Shinji took a light breath and glanced once more around the room to check that Asuka's balled fist was nowhere in sight. Spilling his final reason for liking what he liked would give him one more reason why he couldn't go back to Asuka or even Rei ever again.  
If he didn't get kicked and punched in the face repeatedly, he would get a gigantic wave of hooting laughter designed to damage his psyche in the most mind crushing way possible.

"Don't tell anyone I told you this" Shinji continued still keeping his watchful eye for the terrible fist which even now continued to haunt him miles away from his old apartment. "But, I like the fanservice. Okay? I think the character designs and outfits are nice. Please don't hate me for this."

He expected admonishment. A fist in his face. A threat that he could be arrested on the spot for just saying what he said.  
The reply he got instead made his appreciation at meeting Mari in the time he most needed her grow tenfold.

"You know what Shinji. So do I. I love that show for the exact same reasons you do and I'm so glad you were able to be completely open about the part of the show no one talks about nowadays (censorship and political correctness is overrated in this crap totalitarian world run by monsters anyway)."  
She held up an ornate box as she spoke.

**…**

_A box that Shinji would have killed for years ago when the inner child within him had not died yet._

_When depression had not overwhelmed his mind. When he believed in Misato and Asuka to be a responsible replacement family who could fill the void his absent mother and uncaring father couldn't. The day he smiled a smile that lasted five seconds before Asuka took his hard-earned meagre stack of notes and used it to buy another plate of overpriced food for her and her friends at the shady German diner unlucky enough to be located just outside their apartment._

_Knowing full well that what he was about to do was incredibly immature, the younger Shinji begun to wail and cry like there was no tomorrow. "Well that's great" he had shouted the second he was sure Asuka was out of earshot. "That's just f*cking great. Now what the f*ck am I supposed to do?"_

_Shinji had promised himself that he would be as friendly as polite to everyone as he could. But there were some situations where Shinji-profanity-checker-exe simply could not stomach without crashing. Situations where all the King's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Shinji back together. Not that "the king" would have cared a whit about him anyway._

_He took out the small leaflet that the video game store had been kind enough to hand him advertising all the amazing features the brand new Fairy Tail game to be in store that day would provide. With one flick of his hand, he ripped it in two and threw it into a bin already stuffed full of empty beer cans._

_"That's it man. Game over man. GAME OVER! What am I gonna do now? What am I gonna do?"  
He cried while burying his face in his palms before emitting a savage scream which would have made Godzilla's cry seem like a gentle kitten's purr. He thrashed around the room roaring in distress.  
Asuka's tsundere tendencies had pushed him overboard._

_"Fairy Tail will get you Asuka. Fairy tail will send their best mercenaries and take you down Asuka.  
You just provoked the fury of Juvia Lockhart and you'll pay in blood for your high treason against the Fairy Tail Guild, Asuka."  
By now he was rocking around on his bed laughing shrilly in a maniacal fashion that would have made the Joker cringe in terror. Now he'd never find out if Gray and Juvia tied the knot in the end or not._

_He knew that being as popular a franchise as it was, the game would be sold out long before he got his next payroll if he even lived that long.  
And if he did survive to be forked his next thin wad of Yen, it would promptly be snatched from his grasp by Asuka to be used in another expensive German meal which would be gone in a few bites._

_He knew that she never had it easy either, but was that any excuse for what she was doing to him now?_

_It was only the sight of the sun going down the sky which jerked the crazed lunatic back to his senses. Two car honks and a menacing set of heavy-footed steps from downstairs later, Shinji had sprung into action throwing hastily but precisely measured ingredients into the cooking pot which he had rapidly placed onto the stove with the gas turned to max._

_The Vacuum cleaner was plugged in and Shinji was hurriedly moving it around the apartment even as steam begun to rise from the cooking pot. He had to be ready._

_Asuka and Misato liked to get angry at him for poor room service at night mostly. Mostly._

**…**

"It's… it's." Shinji stammered unable to finish his sentence on account of how magnificent the Game box looked up-close held in the hands of a trustworthy friend and fellow member of his fandom he thought he'd spend his entire lonely lifetime alone in.

"It's the most recent Fairy Tail game I have in my collection." Mari respectfully finished for him, unlocking the box as the boy begun to clutch his breathless chest as she held the equally ornate disk up for him to see it in all its glory. "And I would be honoured to play it with you, Shinji."

"Play" the overzealous fanboy dumbly blurted, the massive surge of excitation severing his brain's connection to his vocal chords. "Play. Play. Play!"

"I'll take that as a yes." Mari said as she placed the disk into the TV's disk slot and a masterfully animated set of cutscenes begun to play showing off the character's in all their glory.  
He was so cute when he bumbled about in this way and she knew she had done her job well.  
Oh if only Yui had lived long enough to see her son happy as he was now. Shame on Gendo for not treating a good woman better and indirectly orchestrating her demise.

A half hour later and Gray Fullbuster and Juvia Lockhart were battling their way through treacherous landscapes each one worse than the previous.  
Countless bad guys fell to the pair's flawless synergy of powerful skills and teamwork.  
Undead, bandits, massive crystal golems and even the legendary dragons twice the size of a house were no match for the duo.

A gigantic packet of flavoured popcorn and Nacho's complete with dips were brought into the room and the players were now stuffing themselves full of snacks as they eagerly awaited the next level to load with bated breath. They were not going anywhere until Fairy Tail was safe from its enemies.

The final boss. They had reached the final boss.  
"I think this is where we've lost. I've never beaten this one over the several times I've played this." Mari nervously chimed as Juvia readied a ball of water nonetheless.  
"Don't say that, Mari. There are two of us now. Let's work together and this time we can do it."  
Shinji confidently encouraged raising a fist to the sky as the boss finished the last lines of it's overly drawn out speech.

"Now that's more like it." The British girl silently remarked to herself as she quickly readjusted her glasses which had nearly slipped off. "That's the kind of spirit that's going to get us to victory over NERV and SEELE. Get in there Shinji. Get in there."

It was neither a beast nor mysterious warlord which crested the two Fairy Tail members sword held high, red hair flying in the wind.  
It was a magical mirror construct of Erza Scarlet created by the mysterious evil force as a last ditch resort against the heroes. With the power to change weapons and tactics at the snap of a finger just like the real Erza, this would be no cakewalk.  
"A redhead?" Shinji could not help but sarcastically sneer. "You think I can't deal with an angry redhead. Well game, I deal with one every miserable day of my life. What's one more to me?"

"You hear that Asuka. Shinji's not afraid of you. Not anymore" Mari satisfactorily commented to herself. That meant one less handicap for the hero who was Earth's last hope.

The fight begun. Dark Erza was fast and merciless. Shinji and Mari were left completely on the defensive as the incredibly unforgiving AI bombarded them with some of the most terrifying attacks they had ever seen. And they had dealt with enough Angels to give them enough nightmares to last a lifetime.

"You call that a hit?" Shinji laughed as one of Dark Erza's strikes collided with Gray, draining nine tenths of his full life bar despite him being clad in full armour. A gust of wind would knock him dead at this point.  
"Asuka hit me harder than that when she wasn't happy with me."

"Now it's my turn. Take this." A devastating spear of ice struck Dark Erza full in the chest, draining a measly dot from her life bar.  
"No need to be afraid of not getting a promotion Asuka. As punishment for assaulting a fellow pilot and as the son of the chief of NERV, I hereby declare you…FIRED!" The boy crowed as the onscreen Gray threw barrage after barrage of icy missiles at the boss.  
"Your days of using me as a punching bag are over Asuka. Because now I have true friends who appreciate me for who I am."

Mari blushed a little at these words.

Dark Erza stood over the stunned and immobile Gray to deliver a final killing blow, grinning evilly. All the attacks he had thrown her way had not quite been enough to disable such a mighty foe.  
A flash of the screen later and she had no emotion at all as an impeccably timed Water Nebula fired by his faithful teammate struck the monster square in the back causing a massive explosion as dark sparks flew everywhere.  
Juvia Lockhart stood smiling proudly as the last remains of the dark clone were scattered to the winds.  
Gray returned the smile as he took her in his arms.

But the biggest smiles that day came from the two pilots of NERV who were proudly connecting their fists with each other and clapping each other in the shoulder as they didn't even bother to watch the ending scenes they had completed an entire game to earn the rights to see. Each was looking at the other with a level of respect that even Gendo could never hope to attain from his company even on his better days.

This would be just the first of their many victories together as a dynamic duo.  
Today a virtual warlord lay defeated, no match for their combined might. Tomorrow it would be NERV itself wearing defeat at their hands. SEELE's defeat would be just another small step after that.

The rest of the day was almost equally as pleasant. Shinji and Mari went to the swimming pool near Mari's mansion, one of the few fitness companies which could still afford enough purified water to allow those who could afford its prices to remain fit and relaxed.

It was not necessary to describe the sheer force Shinji had no choice but to apply to his nose to prevent the massive flood of blood building inside it from leaking out as Mari came along him in her dark blue swimsuit. It was a good kind of nosebleed however.

And as embarrassing as it was for him to then run to the bathroom and to use up the entire roll of toilet paper to wipe away the sheer volume of red before running back nearly slipping in the process, he could not help but wish it to happen again.  
It was not like being punched in the nose at all. Which was the treatment he would have gotten if Asuka took Mari's place at the pool today.

Mari beat every swimmer in the pool by several smooth strokes, moving through the water like a bolt of lightning. It really was as if she was hydrodynamically designed.  
Shinji now knew not to underestimate the athletic skills of those in need of ocular assistance.

They went for a walk after that, browsing the streets for the simple purpose of browsing.  
It was here that Shinji was able to ask a few further questions of his newest teammate who had despite her novelty become his dearest companion.

He told her his favourite instrument was the Cello to discover in return that hers was the war drums followed by the war horn as a close second.

His preferred dance was the foxtrot. Hers was the blades dance, the ancient dancing stance used by skilled swordsmen and by extension skilled swordswomen in the past to dodge through the maelstrom of battle with ease without suffering so much as a scratch.

She was 17 this year, just less than three years older than his fourteen and a bit.  
"Although a lot of people say I don't act my age so it really doesn't mean anything." She added.

"And a lot of people call me the immature, whiny brat" Shinji joked inciting a giggle from them both.

"So, what's your country England like?" was his next question. It must have been quite a nice place to have citizens as nice as Mari be from it.  
The answer he got was perhaps the one sad spot in the otherwise very uplifting conversation.

"It's a totalitarian hellhole." She bluntly replied, a touch of tranquil fury belied only by her astounding composure in even this angry moment "Ever since NERV came, a lot of my country's wealth was pulled out. The taxes NERV charges there are even worse than here. Now NERV just uses it to suck out every last penny it can like a vampire. The only nice buildings there are where NERV has its headquarters. Everywhere else is just slums and shantytowns or ruins of old buildings before NERV took over which will soon fall into rubble."

"It can't be that bad." Shinji protested intending to sooth Mari before she got any sadder with the delicate topic he now really regretted throwing her way. He now wanted nothing less than to slap his own mouth for his unintended insensitivity.

"It is Shinji. It really is. What England and America did to Africa during the slave trade, Japan or rather NERV is now doing to England. There are cholera outbreaks everywhere. The people are starving. No one talks to each other anymore and no one wants to be friends unless there's money involved and even then, they stab each other in the back the second they can get away with it. I barely got clear of my country myself."

"What do you mean?"

"NERV nearly killed me. I had to fight teeth and nail to get away from that forsaken land and get here. I was very lucky to escape alive. If you've seen half of what I went through to get here…" she shook her head in sad remembrance. "Perhaps it's best you haven't. I've seen things I hope no one will ever have to see. Been through hardships I hope no one will have to go through. "

Shinji knew from the sullen and serious frown on his girlfriend's face that it was now or never. For him it was speak now or forever hold his peace. He considered the latter option at first seeing how painful Mari's memories clearly were for her but if there was just one lesson, he had learned during the short time he had spent with her it was to be honest.  
To question everything and everyone and that sweeping a problem under the carpet only made the problem grow worse with time.

He needed to ask the million-dollar question right here and now. As much to show he really cared for her as to get to the bottom of another mystery he'd never have the chance to solve again.

He cleared his throat and stood up straight looking her softly in the eyes.

"Please. Tell me what happened."

Mari's soft eyes looked back into Shinji's. They resembled rainclouds close to bursting, but her voice was still clear and unbroken.  
"Do you really want to know, Shinji? Once you know, you won't be able to not know. You'll have to live with the whole truth about me and what I've had to do. You might not like what you hear."

"I'm ready for it. I care about you Mari. You're the first true friend I've had in my life. And while it's true that I might not like what I hear, I won't just betray a friend. And keeping it inside you is going to do you more harm than good. So please, tell me. I'll understand." He put his hand on her trembling arm as he said this, letting his warmth and empathy spread to her.

A tear rolled down Mari's cheeks as it was her turn to clear her throat.  
A single tear of gratitude in its purest form.  
He had been the first person she had ever met to ask her the question not even Sakura had asked.  
He was the first evangelist in her life caring enough to care.

_Thanks once again to StraightedgeEpyon and Fictionelement777 and James Birdsong and Darkscythe Drake for all your kind reviews and support.  
Love you guys._


	11. Mari's childhood Part 1

**Chapter 11: Mari's childhood. Part 1: Good old Totalitaria. **

17 years ago in a little town in England, an ordinary man and woman no different from your typical Joe and Jane Smith living in the bleak shadow of the impact which devastated the Earth giving rise to the Angels, gave birth to their lovely daughter.  
A feisty little thing that came out energetically thrashing and laughing despite a less than smooth labour on the part of her mother who died on her bed.

The poor young woman had not been eating well as of late since NERV had tightened its grip on the terrified people of England, demanding higher tributes daily lest it withdraw its protection and leave the citizens as ripe meals to be eaten alive by the Angels. Having to keep up her work as a labourer even during her latter pregnant months probably didn't help either.

NERV's taxes had cast off Maternal leave for the country. It was now just one more bygone luxury of a bygone era.

The once free medical enterprise that was the NHS was no more and the couple had had to make do with a rundown clinic run by a makeshift apothecary with barely one year of medicine school experience and only a battered and barely legible Biology textbook to his education.

He was a handy fellow in spite of his handicaps and against all common logic and all odds, the girl who would soon become the daughter of Martin Simon Bishop came successfully into the world seemingly uninjured.  
"Such beauty that her poor mother never lived to see" the apothecary had sadly remarked through his surgical mask as he showed the cheerfully babbling little baby to a man who was split completely in two over whether to laugh or cry at this bittersweet moment where joy and sadness were fused into one.

Tears formed in the eyes of the tall but thin widowed husband as he took his daughter in his shaking arms staring upon her like she was an envoy from the heavens and the one thing holding him together in his darkest yet brightest hour.  
He didn't know what to say so he said nothing at all, acknowledging the unskilled but kind quack's assistance with a silent nod as he continued to hold the baby forcing himself to be strong on the birthday of his child that he alone would now have to raise.

The late Theresa Simon Bishop would soon be laid to rest buried in his small garden, a wooden cross marking the mound where a good wife and mother slept in peace, freed from the burdens of a cruel regime brought about by a military dictatorship which had no hesitation of opening fire on the very citizens it was supposed to protect.

"She was too pure for the world" he would tell his daughter when she got old enough to join him at the foot of the humbly constructed grave which he had spent a week's worth of his salary acquiring the shovel and cross for.  
"Too pure. Too sweet. Too innocent."  
The young brown-haired girl would then pat her father's back as he stoically held back his tears to stand a few moments longer in silent respect at the holy site which was to him what the Taj Mahal had been for Shah Jahan.

The two stood a little while longer before with a curt bow, they finally withdrew and headed into their two-room cottage to make dinner.  
"G, goodbye. Mum." The girl nervously stammered as she herself strove to hold back the fluid blurring her vision. "R, rest in peace."

The proud father decided to name his lovely daughter Marie after careful deliberation and a brief period of mourning following the sudden passing of his wife who gave her life to bring their child to bear.

The name of a famous female scientist who spoke against the inferior rights of women and went on to win two Nobel prizes despite the discrimination against non-male researchers in her archaic era.  
A brave woman who triumphed against all odds. A daredevil gambler who took risks knowing they were risks and went down gambling knowing that one day she would live on in legend if not in life.  
Without whom the highly powerful nuclear technology that provided NERV with its EVA's would not and could not exist.

It had certainly been a wild stroke of sheer luck which let the girl grow up strong and beautiful. He had heard of miscarriages which had gone less badly leaving babies needing breathing equipment and special formula milk neither of which even a year's worth of his earnings could have bought him.

But his Marie had not been one of them. She was the lucky survivor whose intelligent eyes were the most distinguishing aspect of her visage.

Martin believed that a name was a sacred thing and that picking what would be the title one's offspring would bear for life needed to be an exact science for the truly responsible parent.  
It was what his father had said to him as a boy one evening by a nearly burnt out fire, when the old coot in a rare bout of lucidity launched into a long-winded rant about the great virtues of peace protestor Martin Luther King who fought for his cause without actually fighting at all.

Though the history lesson had left him bored beyond belief that night, it was the memory her father could always remember with absolute clarity when he thinks back to his childhood.  
It was the conversation that formed much of his robust character as he grew to become a happy and hardworking head of his family who loved his life and his loved ones despite the poor upbringing he'd endured which made him the beggar among beggars in a society where beggars became the norm.

He taught English and very basic Maths in a small but welcoming classroom which took place in a rented storeroom above a bar.  
It wasn't much but it had tables, chairs as well as walls and a roof to keep the students sheltered from the elements which was more than most of them could ask for in the dark ages NERV had taken their once glorious country back into.

He was an excitable tutor who was passionate about the little he was able to teach his students, never ignoring the slowest student when they were struggling with material the others had found child's play.

His students, many of whom had only rags to wear even on the coldest winter days, loved their tutor. A poor child of farmers who could never afford for him finish his third school year. He taught that while there was precious little that he could teach them, being able to read, write and count was more than enough to steer anyone to great riches if they simply made the right decisions.

That the most important subject no school however fine could teach a child, was common sense.  
A vastly underrated subject that the stuck up snobs in NERV putting gold onto their bread had clearly never had beaten through their thick skulls.

A day spent mastering the art of common sense and common logic he told his class, was worth a decade spent poring over the tomes in the Great Library of Alexandria.

He used the meagre handful of coins his student's handed him for a lesson to give his daughter the best lifestyle he could, giving his own slice of bread to her when he saw she was clearly still hungry and putting his own duvet over her smaller shivering body when it was cold.

And of course, giving her for free the lessons he gave his other pupils for a pound in which she studied harder than every other learner in the room combined in the seat closest to the front.

Though he never mustered the earnings to buy Marie even the cheapest toys from the toy shops now owned by NERV, there were a stack of nice books her grandparents had left him as his frugal heritage, and he spent the little time he had teaching her to value these literary treasures as much as any toy.

To see each text as living proof that Newton was not out of his mind when he said that humankind stood on the shoulders of giants. To receive through words on a paper, the life experiences and wisdom of countless mighty eternals who spent eternity building a magnificent world which NERV ruined in a day.

He was always tired from his long days spent working hard to keep them fed, but he always mustered up the will to read her one of her favourite stories for her every bedtime and to not stop reading till she had drifted happily away to the land of dreams whereupon he gave her a pat and a kiss to show his undying affection for his one remaining family member.

Marie grew to be a quiet scholar who while not much of a talker, was an excellent listener who understood not just the words in a conversation but the meaning behind the words being said.  
A friendly empath who could at a glance determine when speakers told the truth and when they sought to deceive.  
She was a perceptive observer, in a world of lies and propaganda where no one liked such skill.

Where those who saw the truth behind the propaganda posters and news stories that had been spun into the ground until any grain of truth was gone, were an obstruction for NERV's business which had to be removed.

She remembered how she had begged her father repeatedly not to keep risking his life in the protests he spent any day he wasn't working in school leading with a placard drawn with the remains of an empty cardboard box.  
To stop writing the letters to the editor which were full of the logical reasons any fool could see on why NERV should have been deposed long ago.

"NERV reinforces boarders with 200,000 more troops is the headline of today's paper which will make the poor citizens only more loyal to a tyrant who cares not a whit about their wellbeing" he had spoken at one protest Marie had snuck to wearing a blanket over herself to cover her hair. Despite the risks he was willing to take to his own life, he had firmly ordered her to stay at home where no one would see her and draw the conclusion that she was in any way related to him for her own safety.

"200,000 more troops means 200,000 more murderers to kill even more of our loved ones in cold blood when we rightfully object to their crazy rules. 200,000 more killers to stop any of us from leaving to find a better future. To stop the world from seeing our plight and sending aid we so badly need and so richly deserve."

She could not help but cheer with the sizeable crowd who had come to see the poor teacher with the short messy unwashed hair and the curved moustache which covered his mouth.  
Her father was a clever man even without the luxury of proper education.  
Education she had come to realize, was only NERV playing games with the country to keep the wool of deceits firmly placed over its eyes.

What happened next, she could only have hoped she could say was a surprise.  
She couldn't even say that.  
She had known the day would come even if she didn't fully know it would come when it did the morning that she had walked out into the town square to get some potatoes to use for the evening meal.

Marie Simon Bishop very nearly gouged out her own eyes at the truly atrocious display she witnessed from the alley she had been lucky enough to quickly duck into before anyone saw her.  
Surrounded by twelve NERV agent's garbed in dark church robes, tied to a gigantic cross in the middle of a burning stake screaming his head off, was her father.  
A small crowd of villagers some of them children had been rounded up by another group of NERV agents with guns pointed straight at them. They were being corralled here and forced to watch the spectacle that should have ceased to stay in fashion several centuries ago when Martin Luther King supposedly won his battle against racial prejudice and social injustice.

This wasn't what modern society should have been. This was something Marie expected from barbarians who would have been clapped in chains in the medieval times they thrived in.  
It took all her fear and yet all her willpower for her not to scream as she first begun to cautiously creep away only to break into a run when one of the NERV gunmen saw her and without even a word, opened fire.

A stream of deadly bullets smashed into the wall beside her missing her by mere inches as adrenaline begun to bestow its blessings upon her.  
She quickened her sprint as shouts of alarm rang out across behind her and she heard the sound of more bullets being loaded into guns.

Her life hung in the balance.

Knowing full well that the art of larceny was a shameful action only a scoundrel would dare enact, she leapt upon the nearby unattended bicycle lying up against a tree in front of her and begun to cycle with the speed and power of a master class triathlete as bullets struck the ground behind her.

Little did poor Marie know that this would be just first of the many crimes she would be forced to commit which she'd spend her life cursing herself nightly over.

She continued to recklessly increase speed as her stolen bike headed down a steep hill. She would a billion times rather die from a crash than from a bullet of a heartless psychopath with no heart.  
Her screams matched those of her father in his dying moments of burning agony as she accelerated to a pace at which everything seemed like a blur.

It was a miracle how she didn't die as her bike careened into a brick wall at the end of a road surrounded on all sides with buildings. Her chest felt as if it had been kicked by a horse and it would take her a few moments to recover from whiplash but at the very least the nine-year-old Scholar still had her life. Though probably not for long as the menacing din of heavy-footed steps begun to echo louder and louder even as she regained her senses.

"Dead end drive" a sign on the nearby pavement read. How fitting.

"Catch that girl at any cost. Don't let her escape" she heard a deep throated voice shout.  
"She deserves no better than her father."

Knowing she only had seconds before she became the next poster for child gun safety, Marie's eyes quickly scanned the entirety of the area before her. Common sense dictated that her only way out lay in the passageway since the only way she was heading back the way she came was in a body bag.

The most cursory of glances informed her that the wall was too smooth with no footholds to scale up. Too tall as well to get over.  
The two buildings closest to her were padlocked shut with securely shuttered windows. Dead end drive was aptly named.

It was here where her attention settled upon the slightly broken manhole lid nestled upon the ground before the wall.  
It obviously hadn't been fixed in a long time and the broken spot in the lid was just large enough for her to fit her hand through to pull and tug at the heavy metal with all her might.  
Several times she felt as if her heart would give out from the extreme exertion but something deep inside Marie insisted to her that it was not her time to die yet.

"One of you check down there" she heard the same voice from before now louder call out.  
It was the catalyst which finally granted her the final ounce of strength she needed.  
Finally with a crack, the lid gave way and fell backwards with a metallic bang as Mari jumped down the hole just as the heavy footsteps from earlier crunched against the ground above her.

It was a long way down but she managed to survive the fall with only slightly hurt kneecaps as she landed on a stone platform narrowly avoiding the river of sludge which would have surely drowned her.

Now was not the time for discussing the several nasty germs that were bound to be lurking down in this stinking drainage facility. It was time to be grateful to the genius who invented sewage and to sprint around the first corner she saw as the sound of feet connecting with metal bars echoed around the underground passageway. They were climbing down here to continue their pursuit of her.  
NERV really didn't give up easily did they?

She ran as fast as her now very painful legs would permit, breathing heavily as she crossed bridges, turned corners and ducked through holes too low for even a young girl like her to get through without stooping.  
A single wrong move and a barrage of sharpened lead would be peppering her body.  
A slight false step and she would tumble face first into the thick liquified residue of human waste to die a slow and painful death of toxic asphyxiation.

"Why god?" she sobbed to herself as she continued onward despite every fibre of her knackered body pleading with her to stop and rest even if it got her killed. "What did I ever do to deserve this?". Marie had never been religious. But this was a question she genuinely wanted the answer to here at this moment.

If an all loving god really did rule the Earth as the almighty church once claimed he did, why was he inflicting such torment on a defenceless girl who had already lost so much while allowing the truly evil crimes of NERV to go unpunished?  
Probably for the same reason that the popes of old commissioned grand cathedrals trimmed with the finest gemstones to be built one after another while ignoring and even brutalizing the mass of beggars huddled outside the churches who were forbidden from entering.

Her father said it better than anyone else. God helped those who helped themselves. And heaven and hell were both places on Earth. And right now, Marie was running through the deepest bowels of hell after being locked out of heaven.

As the last of her strength gave out and she had no choice despite her fear to stop and take a breath, she saw a stairway behind a nearby grate. She very nearly cursed fortune for presenting her with an escape only to hold it just out of her reach when a closer look revealed to her that one of the bars had fallen away leaving a rather large gap.  
Being only nine years of age and rather thin and small, a few awkward movements along with a lot of pain allowed Marie to force her way through the grate.  
She retreated up the stairway and through another thankfully open manhole, escaping the watchful sight of NERV with only milliseconds to spare.

They would thankfully not guess that she had gone that way and even if they could, the grate would get in the way of their fat and tall muscular bodies.

From where Marie was finally able to exit the indecipherable network of tunnels, it was only a short walk till she slipped out near the south road into town without being observed by anyone else taking care to keep her distance from the road lest NERV send a vehicle after her next.

The sky was already dark as she took one last glance which would be memory at her childhood hometown of Nirgendwo, named for its bizarre geographical location of being 50 miles from the nearest settlements and even further from the nearest major cities.  
It's name too was significant in the sense that like NERV and SEELE, it was a German title in a distinctly not Germany country.

Marie didn't need to cry pointless tears as she slunk away into a thick forest to pass the night in safety to know that she had to fend for herself now with both her parents gone.  
Nine years old with only a dark blue skirt and a matching navy sweater and shoes to her name, her life was hers alone to live now.  
Crying would solve nothing for her now as she took shelter on a pile of leaves and did her best to fall asleep despite the paranoia that remained with her even now that she'd lost her pursuers.

Thankfully Survival books had been high on her preferred reading list and Marie found herself silently formulating what she hoped would be at least a half decent plan as she watched the stars in the sky in a vain attempt to calm herself.  
Tomorrow she would wake up before the sky was completely bright yet and continue along the forest track to reduce the risk that anyone would find her.

She would continue to stay in the forest until she was clear of the shadow of Nirgendwo before continuing South in the direction of the fairly nearby coastal village of Irgendwo.  
What she would do if she somehow managed to get there, that part of her plan would have to wait. But she couldn't stay in this country any longer than she had to.

"I hate you NERV, I hate you. I really hate you." She muttered angrily as sleep eventually came, too scared to raise her voice as much as she would have liked to.

If not for her father's rhetoric against unnecessary violence, she would happily have gone down killing as many NERV agents as she could. They didn't deserve mercy.

_Once again props to every reviewer for reviewing. And yes, I changed the title of my story to better suit the kind of theme and direction I'm trying to get it to take._

_Thank you guys for see ya next time.  
Bye!_


	12. Officer Ibuki books it out of NERV

**Chapter 12: Officer Ibuki books it out of NERV.**

By now the brown haired girl and boy had found a wooden bench where they sat facing each other as the girl continued to tell the story of her life to the boy she saw nothing but good in.  
The boy had remained in solemn silence throughout the tale determined not to miss a single word of the important narration he knew he'd never get the chance to hear again.

"No, no, no, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong" the chief of NERV spat in cold disdain as he sat facing his first lieutenant Maya Ibuki, a tomboyish but still incredibly eye-catching fashion icon who looked as if she'd fit much more snugly on the front cover of a fashion magazine than in the imperialistic offices of NERV's headquarter fortress where the very walls echoed with authority.

Her short brown hair was the same tone as that of chief General Gendo Ikari's son Shinji and it was not hard to imagine that were she reversed in age a few years, they would look like twins from a distance.  
The only thing more similar between them was the complete and utter frown of disdain they shared when once again they were hauled into the big man's office to be given another admonishing one of his rants over accidents they alone could profess to heaven they had zero control over.

"It's come to my attention that you're not measuring up." Gendo Ikari continued, not looking at her as he spoke but down at a photo of his late wife Yui which he kept on his desk. Two tall guards stood staring at her like stone statues with their rifles pointed squarely in her face, ready to feed lead into her body the second she made any threatening movements.  
"You need to stay late, again. With no overtime. Your project needs to be completely redone. Oh, and I have to write you up again too. That's three more demerits this week alone."

"You really just can't seem to do anything right." Was the line of his long and lengthy lecture which caused her until now expressionless lips to twist into a furious frown which she looked down to hide from the bane of her existence and of many others unlucky enough to be in the same prison she had trapped herself in since the day a young and naïve college student saw an add promising her great pride and job prospects in being a soldier for the most powerful protection agency in the entire world.

The sheer jubilation and elation a young and inexperienced college dropout felt upon seeing that job offer when she had realized too late that her degree would be useless for the job positions that would soon be closing up in response to the increasing threat of Angels along with the increased presence of NERV. She had always fancied herself pretty good with a gun, at least in Video games which she always seemed to be better at than her studies.

How excited she had been the day she got her smart grey uniform and her rifle after breezing through the training exercises like a piece of cake, the first test she ever passed with no sweat.  
They told her she'd have more than enough money to send to her family and keep herself in luxury for a lifetime.

Not two years later, her mother and father had died to hunger and cold related illnesses caused by the simple inconvenience of not having enough to buy food or heating.  
They had both been unlucky enough to develop arthritis and osteoporosis in their fifties and unable to work themselves prompting Maya to put herself out into the world of work as soon as she could.  
The aforementioned paralyzing conditions in and of themselves caused by a lifetime of malnourishment and overtime work in NERV's factories ,which of course like the rest of NERV gave every worker, zero compensation.

And Maya herself little more than skin and bone as she felt closer to dying on both the outside and the inside every day. She was but one rank below Major Misato but she had never been able to shake away the feeling that in this workplace that was terrible in every sense of the word, she was nothing more than the kicked can on the pavement whose only destiny was to be thrown in the bin once everyone had gotten bored of the kicking game.

She wondered if this was what the poor boy forced to live with Misato and the other mean German pilot's presence felt, when his father called him here every time to berate him on a whim.

"Oh, and starting from next week, we're merging with a bigger company. Which means downsizing and twenty percent wage deductions across the board. In case you didn't get the memo about it already."  
The commander nonchalantly added to the woman whose anger was now causing her to convulse uncontrollably as she continued to keep her gaze downward unable to take much more of this.

Maya was beginning to wonder if her rule of viewing only the Angels terrorizing humankind as acceptable targets for her rifle applied to every situation. Her trigger finger was really starting to itch right now. There was being nonviolent and then there was taking stupid crap which took away her very dignity as a human being.  
It was in these seconds that a sudden epiphany begun to hit the meek and timid lieutenant full force.  
She had discovered too late the reason behind why no one in NERV ever smiled or laughed since she'd been here. The reason why Gendo's son Shinji was treated so harshly despite his above average performance in every battle he was in and treating everyone he worked alongside with the same respect as if they were all one big family to him.

The reason why she had heard in whispered rumours by some of her co-workers when they were safely out of earshot of Gendo, that NERV was the place where careers came to die.

Gendo was lucky that her rifle stayed locked in the weapons cabinet until it was combat time.  
She would gladly have gunned down the sociopath with no right to keep his son and planted the father of the year trophy on his grave given the chance.

Shinji would be driven with an armed escort to keep his two "legal guardians" far from him to her house where she would take every bit of food she could afford and given it to him until she herself died of starvation to join her parents in the afterlife. She may have been a coward. She may have been a pushover. Perhaps merely serving in NERV made her heartless as well. But at least she had not lost her head enough not to notice that something in Shinji's fake smile spoke of horrors beyond most people's wildest nightmares.

Her nervousness and excessive thoughtfulness for the lives of others had gotten in the way of these thoughts before but hearing Gendo hurl these insults in her face as if she were not even human had given her the courage that all the combat training and fear therapy courses in the world could not.

Even the nicest and most shy shrinking violet had her breaking point. Her breaking point came today. And while she wasn't and never would be the thick-skinned steel plate that the other soldiers in NERV had been successfully hardened into, she knew she had to do something, however little of an impact she made.

"Do whatever you want with me." She managed to choke out in a low voice still unable to meet her commander's sharp gaze of burning passion. "But please. Don't hurt Shinji. He's your son who's already broken up over losing his mother. Be a bit easier on him. Please."

"You dare interrupt me in the middle of a speech and expect me to give my attention to you?" the General impudently admonished, chewing on every word before he spat them out. "I ask for your undivided attention to your head of authority as penance for your mistakes, and you have the rudeness to try to lecture me when you are clearly the one in the wrong?"

"Apologize this very instant or I will have severe disciplinary action taken against you." he ordered, his until now quiet voice growing a little louder on the last syllable.

"Please sir. What did your son ever do to you? What did he ever do to anyone but try to be nice? He's been a good pilot who has led NERV to many victories snatched from the jaws of defeat has he not?"  
Maya Ibuki didn't care at this moment whether she was fired from the only source of income keeping her alive. She didn't give a damn if the two gunmen watching her shot her dead this instant.  
The General's complete and utter ignorance of her words concerning the wellbeing of his own child, told her everything she needed to know about how truly terrible a parent he had been.

The only thing she could think about was a crying Shinji who was wringing his head as he looked up to reveal empty sockets instead of eyes.  
His clothes were torn and ragged. Blood seeped from a wound in his shoulder and there were big bruises all over his face and his arms.

"Help me officer Ibuki. HELP ME!" he screamed as a blur of red erupted from the doorway behind him and dragged him away. "AAAAAH!" he cried to no avail as he was whisked out the doorway and the darkness of his gaping mouth expanded to fill every corner of the mental image until everything was black.

"Shinji…" She whispered as she stood up straighter than she had in years and managed despite her evident fear to look her commander in the eyes the first time she had done so since her first day in NERV.  
The one boy and one co-worker to never harass, belittle or undermine her earnest attempts at being the best employee she could despite her limitations.

And it had taken her this long to realize that his father was not simply a bad boss, but a bad father too.  
A bad father who didn't deserve the decision of who got custody over the hero that was the one pure soul keeping NERV together despite their flaws.  
"I'm coming Shinji. Hang on." She balled her fists as she vowed this vow to herself.

Promises didn't come easy from the doormat officer afraid of her own shadow, but when Maya made a promise, she kept it if it cost her very life.

She took a deep breath and gave herself the hardest pinch she could as she refocused her blurry sight on the devil before her sitting on the throne of hell. If this was a twisted Anime show made by a twisted mind with no idea how to write a sensical story, this was her episode.  
The episode where the side characters took over the script to become the main focus.

And no self-respecting Main character let injustice go unpunished when there was even the smallest contribution that they could make in combating it.  
Main character Maya was pushing the director out the way to grab hold of the script. The next words out of her trembling mouth represented the first lines her trembling hands wrote on the tattered papers which dictated the rules of the terrible existence she had been forced to endure for far too long.

"Mr Ikari Sir. For once in your life, be reasonable. Fire me if you like, I know my performance was far below what was expected of me but please, grant me just one formality. Just, a semblance of a formality. Allow me to take custody of your son. Shinji. I may not have much in the way of material possessions or experience in childcare, but if you simply give me a chance to prove myself, I can make him happy in my own way. And if you must fire me, allow him to take control of the payroll you usually offer me. It is the least a young hero such as Shinji deserves after all the good, he has done for NERV."

The chief of NERV said nothing. He sat staring into the distance as if pondering complex matters completely unrelated to the discussion at hand and his eyes slid past Maya without pause. The guards seemed to be nearly falling asleep as the grip on their rifles drifted a little loser.

"Think about your wife Yui!" Maya insisted, managing to raise her timid and shaking intonation a tiny bit fuelled by another mental image of Shinji's silent screams as they echoed throughout her mind causing her head to throb to bursting point. "Your wife would have wanted you to take good care of the life you two created together. This is not what Yui would have wanted if she was still here with us. You know that."

"Don't bring my wife into this." Her persistence managed to evoke from the stern man still not looking in her direction. "How would you know what she wanted? Shut your trap before I do it myself."

"Okay fine. But why?" Her pleading had become demanding. She had known since the instant the thought of a lost and crying Shinji came into her thoughts that she was not staying here in NERV even if she was given the contents of the treasury for her salary.

"Why do your shut your son out? Why do you shut the world out? WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF!?"  
The first time in her life to raise her voice, and it felt absolutely awful. But this had to be done.

"I SAID ENOUGH!" the usually unflappable and emotionless boss loudly retorted slamming a palm on his desk making Maya recoil back far enough to hit the wall.  
But this shout completely uncharacteristic of the cold sociopath was only momentary and though he still did not look his underling in the eyes when he next addressed her, she could tell that he was close to tears himself despite his pretence of power and control which he was now artificially injecting into his words.

"You've gone too far this time, Miss Ibuki. You go too far. As punishment for your sub-par performance and this disgraceful display of utter disrespect for your superiors, I hereby declare you…"

He never finished his sentence as the victim of his verbal assault took off her golden badge on her uniform and threw it at the feet of his desk. The half-asleep guards raised their guns at Maya but a sudden chill in their bones caused them to shake and tremble with a newfound mixture of fear and respect for the minor officer. Their attempt at a threatening gesture looked more hilarious than frightening as Maya finished her commanding officer's sentence for him.

"Fired? No Mr Ikari. I quit. You didn't fire me, I gave myself up."

"Very…well" the big man retorted slumping forward in his seat with his chin on his hands. "So be it. I could kill you right here and now, but why should I waste a bullet on you? Ammunition is expensive in these costly times and so, as you wish, I will let you resign. Return your uniform to reception before you go and never show your face here again."

"You've betrayed Yui, Mr Ikari." She said as she turned to make a dignified exit preserving the little dignity she still had left after selling her soul to a monster worse than the devil himself.

She walked past crowds of soldiers with her eyes averted so as not to see the shocked and mortified expressions on any of them as she took off her officer jacket and threw it onto a nearby table.  
These defiant gestures were not typical of the scaredy-cat lieutenant they had fallen in love with during her time here.

A darn shame that she had been held up in the big man's room for long enough to let Major Misato make her exit back to the crummy apartment Maya knew she was still keeping Shinji cooped up in as her personal slave and punching bag for the other pilot with the red hair that even Maya feared.

An even darner shame that NERV agents information was to be kept confidential at all times including the addresses of each and every worker from the CEO down to the cleaning lady.

Maya would have dashed to Misato's home and banged on the door until her demand that Shinji be handed over to her unhurt was finally met, and given Shinji the very last of the chocolate milk and cake she had kept in her fridge for a final meal when it came time to make peace with her god before succumbing to starvation by poverty.

Maya had never been very good with languages in school. She had opted to spend the language lessons slumped into her desk covering her ears as the uncaring lecturer babbled on and on with nonsense that she was sure the rest of her class didn't understand or care about either.  
But she had by a divine miracle managed to learn four words.

Four German words which perfectly summarized everything about her situation right now perfectly. Four words which would flawlessly describe the rhetoric behind every action that Maya Ibuki was about to take having finally parted ways with the place where careers came to die.

"Ich Hasse Dich Asuka." Maya muttered as she sat abroad the bus which would take her back to her unheated, unelectrified rat hole of an apartment with no running water, where she would savour her last night with a roof over her head before the landlord came to kick her out tomorrow.  
It would have been payday the next day, but now Maya wondered if the money she had earned from NERV was cursed and if she'd have accepted her salary knowing what she knew now.

Little did Shinji and Mari yet know as Shinji continued to listen intently to Mari's story of her life before coming to Tokyo-3, that they had gained a very determined ally that day.  
A very useful ally who for all her failings in NERV caused only by the warm kindness she shared with Shinji, would serve as an excellent sniper for their merry team.

The one shooter of NERV capable of actually hitting their targets as long as they were not agitated. And Gendo had thrown her down like garbage who didn't even deserve a bullet through her skull. Rookie error.

Score one for Team Shinji Ikari.  
Strike one for Team NERV and Team SEELE.

_Once again thanks to all my reviewers for reviewing. Stay tuned for more.  
See one thing that always bothered me personally with a lot of animated series, not just Evangelion, is how it seems that one character seems to be the only one who needs to learn a lesson while the other characters don't need to learn anything and can get away with anything scot free._

_In Evangelion, Shinji is the only person called out for their flaws of being too cowardly to fight in an EVA even when everyone knows that the poor guy gets abused regularly. Asuka is never called out for being an outright jerk to not just Shinji but everyone else. Misato never gets called out for being a bad parent who can't discipline Asuka or calm Shinji down when he's mad.  
And Gendo never gets called out for running the world down to the ground because he can't get over his wife. _

_Sure, Shinji's not perfect but neither is Asuka. And Asuka should accept some responsibilities too. If she and everyone else were a bit nicer to Shinji, maybe Shinji wouldn't be so hesitant to get in the robot._

_These animated series all make me wonder, where's a social worker or a psychologist when you need em?_


	13. Mari's childhood Part 2

**Chapter 13: Mari's Childhood part 2: The Murderer**

_"Humans tend towards no particular alignment. The best and worst are found among them" - Dungeons and Dragons instructions concerning playing a human character._

Marie woke the next morning with a face full of saltwater and desecrated tear glands which made her bloodshot eyes feel like they were cracking apart.  
Her poor sight felt as if she was seeing the world through a cracked and broken windscreen.

Every muscle in her body ached with each little movement she took.  
Even sleep had offered the newly orphaned brunette no respite as every tiny noise sabotaged her attempts at drifting off.

Struggling to her feet as she fought these awful sensations chaining her down as best she could, the girl begun to walk along the narrow path between the tall trees occasionally taking a peek backwards to check she was not being followed.  
NERV was really living up to it's name by constantly getting on her nerves.  
She had escaped her town but not the dreadful fear that any moment now she could still find herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

It would not even be the cruel but at least humane one shot to the skull that a hunter had the courtesy to offer to their game before hanging their heads onto the wall of a trophy room.

Marie had seen enough of NERV to know that the first bullet would probably go into one of her legs, preventing her from running while giving her the false hope she might get away alive after all.  
The next shots would go into her other leg and then her arms, badly wounding her but not yet killing her.  
Her gut might be next along with some bad pun from her heartless shooter such as "No guts, no glory".

Wherever the NERV agent decided to aim at, they would make sure to refrain from putting her out of her misery for as long as humanly possible.  
It didn't matter if their firearm was a six-bullet revolver or an extra-large chambered machine gun. Not one bit of ammunition would remain in their weapon by the time they finally ended her life in the slowest and most insufferable way possible.

They might even opt to stop shooting the instant there was no way she could crawl far enough to seek any kind of medical attention and had no hope of staying alive even if a doctor did check up on her, leaving her to instead slowly bleed out instead of finishing her off.

The nerve of the psychopaths of NERV.  
It made the nine-year-old girl gag and nearly throw up as she continued her slow and cautious trek through the woods, keeping her hearing primed for the slightest noise.

Twigs snapped under her feet and the wind howled as it played with her shoulder length hair making it fly into her eyes.  
If she ever reached civilization, she would be sure to get a haircut. With the most powerful military organization in the world hunting her, there would be no time for fashion.

She stopped when she reached a nearby river, stopping briefly to stoop and drink from the water when she saw it looked clear enough.  
Common sense told her that she'd not get a chance to rehydrate for an indefinite number of days until she happened by pure luck upon the next body of water which could be anywhere.  
There were no settlements near the backcountry town of Nirgendwo that she had left behind and even if there were, she could hardly count on the oppressed citizens of her ruined country to give her even a crumb.

Food and water had become the gold bars of her era, and even the most selfless evangelist knew better than to go giving gold bars to a starved beggar child with no possible future.

And so the long walk to freedom of Marie Simon Bishop continued in this monotonous manner for the next five days.  
Every step made an already emaciated and poorly fed nine year old runaway even weaker. She walked in painful silence knowing that even talking wasted valuable energy and opted to cut the amount of sleep she took each night to about half, waking up to continue her journey when the sky was still pitch black.

Time spent asleep was time she was not spending escaping from NERV and it was pointless to try and rest for extended periods on an empty stomach that would not let her deeply sleep.

Marie had heard that prior to the first impact, the forests of England were ripe with fruits, berries to say nothing of the lovely little critters which called the arboreal paradise their home.  
There were no such luxuries left for Marie to savour as every yard cost her dearly in life energy which once expanded, would leave her easy prey for a slow and drawn out game of Russian Roulette. If her organs didn't shut down from starvation and thirst first.

The only trees remaining now were the variety which bore no edible fruit and the only animal she had seen was a lone raven on the second day of travel which briefly swooped over her uttering its hideous crow before flying away. It was said that a Raven's cry signalled approaching death. A good thing that the Bishop family had never been superstitious.

"It's Superstitions which in part led to the founding of NERV" daddy once explained a few days prior to his untimely demise. "And uneducated fools pretending to be geniuses by taking certain books way too seriously to make any kind of rational sense. Like how the churches of old built grand buildings for themselves while locking the starving beggars outside. NERV is doing the same, pretending to spread love and tolerance while grandiosely doing the complete opposite"

Every time one of her dad's phrases of wisdom came to her, Marie wanted nothing more than to kneel down and cry until her eyes stopped working. But that would be expanding energy that she knew she didn't have if she wanted to reach the end of whatever this was alive.  
Her parents may have been dead, but as long as she drew breath, their legacy would remain strong in the hearts of the lovely daughter they gave everything to raise.

This was the true way to achieve true immortality. By making positive contributions to the world which got you fondly remembered so that you were never really gone even when you were. Not this mumbo-jumbo about EVA's and human instrumentality which NERV claimed would soon grant everyone ascension to godhood.

Funny how Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi had figured out the true meaning of eternal life centuries before NERV even existed. And NERV called themselves the modernists. Hah.

Day six of the journey. Or what day was it?  
Marie's quickly fading mind couldn't quite keep track anymore.  
She had not had a bite to eat or a sip to drink since the first morning she begun this directionless trip.

Everything seemed blurry. She swore her throat had been lit on fire and her head felt like someone was repeatedly thwacking away at it with a hammer.  
She was not a superhero from a comic book. She was a cowardly and out of shape nine-year-old child who was drawing what were her last breaths before death came to put her out of her torture.

Soon she would see mum and dad again. Though she wasn't religious, she did believe that Theresa and Martin managed to end up in the highest cloud in heaven and would be more than happy to welcome their Marie to live with them there forever.

She didn't know what it was that prevented her from simply lying down with her eyes closed to let starvation and thirst do their work which at this juncture, wouldn't be much at all.  
Even if she did reach the harbour city of Irgendwo as she had initially planned to, no one was just going to let her get on a ship without a ticket which cost way more money than she had.

Perhaps it was simple survival instinct which had been ingrained into mankind since they were nothing more than savage animals no better than the Angels.  
Or maybe she was just this much of a coward, not being willing to accept death yet violently refusing to face justice at the hands of the magistrates who now ruled the world, unfair and sadistic as they were.  
Maybe it would have been better if she just let NERV shoot her. At least then she could die with the satisfying acknowledgement that she didn't break the law.

She was snapped out of her pointless line of rhetorical questioning by the sight of a road up next to her.  
In her delirium she had somehow wandered out of the forest to find the lifeline she had until now been renouncing out of fear of being spotted. The six days she'd spent evading capture had made her very antisocial.

She knew this was her last chance. Successfully flag down a passing vehicle and pray to a god she didn't believe in, that the driver was friendly enough to give her a ride to any place better than where she was now. With any luck, there would be food and water that the stranger would have the common decency to share with her. She swore she could see the gates of heaven opening wider and wider by the second.

The dual carriageway was at first very empty. Typical for any road leading to the town Nirgendwo which in English literally translated to Nowhere.  
Then out of the blue, a faint revving of an Engine begun to sound louder and louder as Marie's fading sight managed to make out a blur of black in the distance.

"Stop. Please. Stop" Marie begun to shout, waving her sagging arms frantically in her weakened state.  
She didn't care that the car was probably still too far away to hear her. She was just ecstatic that a god she didn't believe in was actually answering her prayers and she wondered in that moment, whether she would convert to a religion when this entire ordeal was done with.

That thought lasted three seconds as the car came closer for Marie's failing eyesight to finally make out that the driver and passenger was wearing a black military uniform and written on the side door in big grey letters, was "NERV. LTD".

She would have gotten better prayer results from being a devout Satanist who went around kicking kittens for a living.  
She didn't know what she expected was going to happen.

It was this event that an older Marie would always bring up when she was explaining her own stance on why she did not believe in miracles.

The one thing even sheer exhaustion and malnourishment could not impede was the flow of adrenaline. And Marie found herself back to the same energetic state she had been in when she fled the town as she raced back into the woods with lightning speed as the NERV car begun to pull to a stop and the familiar kerchunk of bullets being loaded into guns sounded once more.  
There was no reasoning with evil men who killed without good reason.

She ran without looking back hoping to lose her chasers in the thick undergrowth and maze of dead trees but even with the head start she had gotten in the time it took the gunmen to stop their car and load their guns, she could still hear them very closely behind her.

Several times she nearly tripped. She even banged her head into a tree branch causing a neat trail of blood to trickle from her forehead. She managed to jump over a pit which she saw in the nick of time only to land in a bed of nettles which had survived the Impact, the prickles narrowly missing her face.  
She wanted to scream in pain, but she was too tired for even that.

Then it was dead end drive all over again. She had come to the part of the forest where the trees in every direction except the way she came, were clustered too closely for even a wren to fly through.  
She stood dead still as the faster of the two men finally gained on her, unable to move a leg or arm as a mask of terror formed on her bloodied face.

He took one step closer to get a better angle only to cry out in fear himself as he tripped and fell on a big branch on the leafy ground which in his arrogance he had not seen.  
The stocky and tall grown-up's revolver flew forward as the deadly weapon's former wielder cracked his head on a big sharp rock. It was truly a horrific sight for anyone to behold as vomit came out of the still shocked girl's mouth.

Baser instinct wrested complete control from Marie's better judgement as she reached a hand to catch the glittering firearm still in flight.  
She managed against all odds in her terrified state to grab it almost perfectly. The gunslinging cowboy's in the old westerns on the TV's she sometimes had the luxury of walking past, would have been proud.

A dark silhouette emerged from a layer of trees beneath the slope Marie had just run up.  
A dark shadow with a gleaming weapon that it was beginning to raise even as it came closer and closer despite a now crying and bleeding Marie's repeated silent pleas.

Leaves squelched beneath the figure's feet and Marie was still trapped in the dead end of the maze of trees that was the forests of England.

"S, stay back" the girl weakly tried to utter, putting her captured revolver up in front of her with trembling hands. She had read of this tactic sometimes used by policemen to catch criminals without a serious confrontation and she hoped it would work for her. Surely even the psychopaths of NERV didn't have the nerve not to value their own life?

She would have done better waving a packet of bubble gum. The big and burly figure seemed to take her attempted threatening gesture as little more than a joke as it giggled while raising its own firearm higher and higher.

The events of the next few seconds came as a set of blurry images that her forever damaged psyche would never fully comprehend.  
As the giggling of her attacker became a cheerful and loud laugh, the nine-year-old Marie's trembling trigger finger tightened more and more as not simply ordinary fear but primal terror overwhelmed her senses.

She heard a loud crack and then a cry of pain as her vision begun to dim.  
The figure with the gun had dropped to the ground clutching its chest.  
Had Marie been closer and had her eyes not been so damaged by crippling fatigue, she would have seen that her pursuer was a middle-aged man with greying hair whose emotion in his final moments were not of the fear that he'd soon be dead, but of the surprise and disbelief that his killer had been a nine-year-old schoolgirl with a gun.

Everything was a blur as her feet took her in random directions, no longer under her control.  
Everything was a lie. She was a lie.

A few minutes ago, she would have delighted at the prospect of taking the fight to the men in uniforms that had killed her parents and tried to kill her.  
Now she felt nothing but disgust that she had ever tried to escape what was her rightful fate of being put to death along with her father.

Disgust that she still believed she deserved to even exist let alone live and not die.  
Disgust that she had actually had the gall to pull the trigger in those final seconds where she should have accepted her rightful punishment and let justice be done.  
Even if that justice was being carried out by what amounted to a kangaroo court and a lynch mob of a totalitarian governor who was just trying to silence all opposition, however benign.

"I'm sorry" she managed to sincerely sob, despite the fainting fit coming over her.  
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Through dazed eyes she saw the road ahead once more. But she no longer cared about any of that.  
With the last of her strength as darkness became her world, she weakly put the barrel of her gun to her already reddened forehead.

"I miss you mum and dad" she whispered as unconsciousness consumed her and she fell to the concrete ground of the road, her trigger finger merely millimetres away from clicking the trigger.

Another car pulled up from around the corner as the brown-haired girl in the blue sweater and skirt lay with a serene expression of peaceful parting on the roadway.  
A Japanese woman in the driver's seat and her son riding shotgun.

The woman's hair was long and brown, and she was wearing a white lab coat and an ID tag which denoted her as the chief scientist of NERV.  
The name printed on the tag, denoted her status as the third most powerful human being on Earth whose very words could save or destroy the entire planet on a whim.

"Yui Ikari." The neatly printed writing clearly stated next to the tiny fine print that she was to be granted additional privileges from NERV as the wife of its chief.

…

"I'm a murderer Shinji. A murderer" Mari uncontrollably shouted as she finished retelling this part of her story in the present.

To which Shinji could only sit in uncomfortable silence and nod in strained acceptance. He knew words could only worsen this memory which would forever embed itself as a never healing wound in his girlfriend's heart till the day she died.

He understood fully why Mari did what she did and held not one bit of bitterness for the completely justified act. But he also knew that simply saying the words "It's nothing, I forgive you." Would only worsen the guilt.

It would also have been a dishonest thing to say since he was never angry with Mari in the first place. He would have done the same in her shoes.

The one thing he could say to himself as he allowed Mari to continue her story, was that even pure and perfect Mari had her dark secrets. And that even good people had their bad days. Even happy smilers had their sad moments.

_And we have the next chapter. Thanks once again to all my reviewers for reviewing, especially fictionelement777 and StraightedgeEpyon. You guys rock and I wish you luck wherever you are.  
So you see, it's not just Asuka who had it hard in her childhood after all._

_The story was inspired by escape horror games such as "Inside" and "Little nightmares" where you play as a unarmed and mostly helpless young child trying to escape from the hostile world trying to kill you. You head in an unknown direction alone, not even knowing where you will end up or if you will ever find anything. That would be horrible for anyone. _


	14. Rei Ayanami is not a doll

**Chapter 14: Rei Ayanami is not a doll. **

Shinji begun to silently weep as he continued to listen to Mari's story. He had finally found the one he'd spent all his life searching for without realizing he was searching for her.  
He had found the one who would connect his past with his present.  
The one to remind him that he had done wonderful things in the past which were neither the actions of an idiot nor a brat nor a coward, no matter what Misato and Asuka could say to him.

…

The blue haired Rei Ayanami sat in an empty room of the NERV laboratory facing the wall.  
She was once again experiencing a feeling not typical of the empty shell she was created by Gendo to be, and it was confusing the artificial human in the most perplexing way.

The odd feeling came in two parts, both of them pleasant and unpleasant in their own ways.

The first part was objectively much more comfortable than the second.  
For the past few days when she had the rare chances her creator gave her of interfacing with his son Shinji, she had felt a tingle of warmth when she had the admittedly very handsome and adorable boy in her sights.  
It made her want to throw down all her sorrows and embrace life to the fullest, but it quickly faded when Shinji was once again called away from her, leaving her feeling drowsy enough to collapse.

Simply hearing his name spoken produced this effect which gave vast quantities of pleasure followed by a deep depression when the brief dopamine surge soon wore off.

The second part came when instead of Shinji, she was forced to stand beside her other fellow pilot Asuka in the elevator, in the briefing room and in the EVA hangar as they were forced to wait side by side as their EVA's activated.

Adrenaline took the place of dopamine when this happened to Rei, causing her to tremble and retch in terrible discomfort. It was if to simply peek at Asuka gave Rei the creeps.  
She swore that one time when the elevator was briefly jammed, a balled fist had started to go forward in the split second before the door opened and the two of them were let out.

It had gotten to the extent where she begun closing her eyes and turning away from Asuka every time they were forced to be in contact. The mention of Asuka's name caused the opposite effect as Shinji's.  
It made Rei's teeth clench and her hands curl into fists.

One of these feelings was killing her with happiness. The other one was killing her with grief.  
These feelings Rei understood well even as a non-human secretly hoping to one day be fully human.

Something inside Rei compelled her to walk towards the mirror beside her. Normally she saw only her own sad reflection of an unwanted abomination that would make Frankenstein's monster seem normal and loved in comparison.  
Today she saw something different. The sight that would change her forever.

Staring back at her as if expecting her to look into the glass at that very second, was Shinji in his usual white shirt and all his cute brilliance. His innocent white face and his naïve yet alluring eyes fixed intently upon the flabbergasted Rei who was shaking her head wondering if she had fallen asleep again.

"Come" beckoned the Shinji in the mirror. "Come and find me Rei. We can go against Asuka and my crazed father together."

"You're. You're not real" Rei tried to fearfully protest as the Shinji in the mirror took a fist to the face causing blood to well from it.

"Find me Rei. Find me before Asuka beats me to a bloody pulp and leaves me out as food for the Angels." He pleaded desperately. "Stop running away and do one good thing in your life for a change, Rei."

The reflection faded as Rei gave herself a slap on the arm and her own visage wearing a new determined and eager groan took its place.  
"Yes. Shinji. Yes, I will do as you ask. Wait for me just a little longer. This time I'm really coming." The blue haired bob girl pleaded as her uncertain walk soon broke into a confident run as she made a beeline down several flights of stairs.

It was fortunate that her status as the commander's "favourite" allowed her to wander to (almost) any part of any of his buildings unsupervised and unsuspected as a welcome guest. What she was about to do would have been impossible otherwise.

She stopped running upon reaching a grey little door at the very bottom floor of the gargantuan building which had a big yellow sign with the words "Warning. Highly toxic chemicals. Enter only if equipped with adequate protective gear and to be used by senior NERV research personnel only. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED"

A scanner was placed by its side on the wall. A finger scanner.  
Which Rei fortunately had the privilege to activate, being a clone of the one solitary woman Gendo Ikari supposedly cared for.  
The grey door slid open and Rei ran inside as it shut. She was in a storeroom with metal floors and walls and shelf after shelf stacked full of various beakers and bottles.

An automatic light illuminated the pitch-black space as Rei entered and headed for the very back of the room ignoring the hundreds of concoctions scattered around her.  
She stopped when she reached a shelf marked "Prototypes. Not to be used outside of experimental purposes UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.". She nimbly climbed to the top shelf and took a large beaker containing a deep golden liquid.

Being an artificial clone made her extremely agile and light footed.

Checking once more to make sure it was the one she wanted, Rei jumped down to the floor and quickly headed out of the forbidden room, pleased with the spoils she had looted.

She sprinted out of the building with the solution under her clothes.  
It was fortunate that the people of NERV had learned better than to try and make conversation with her and mostly left her be as she made her escape.  
If she had been paying more attention, she may have however noticed a slight confused smile on the faces of some of the workers, puzzled yet happy that the commander's lifeless little doll was showing a little enthusiasm and excitement today.

She headed out of the lab main door and into the nearby café where she locked herself inside a restroom and took out the bottle whose label read. "Experimental Hair growth formula. To be used sparingly. Note: Due to prototype status, may cause fatal damage to skin and brain instead, DO NOT USE."

After carefully looking over the writing once more to check she had fully understood everything, Rei briefly closed her eyes. "I do this for you, Shinji." She whispered solemnly yet ecstatically.  
Then she opened her eyes and poured the entire contents of the beaker onto her head, taking care to let as little of the liquid splash anywhere else as possible.

She screamed in pain as she performed this unorthodox makeover, forcing herself to keep tipping the liquid onto herself ,even as she felt her head throbbing to bursting point and a chunk of flesh on the back of her hand sear apart to reveal her muscles as a drop of the mixture splashed onto it.

It was worse than when poisonous liquid flooded into her EVA, rendering her unconscious during the one time she was nearly killed by a massive Angel. She had Shinji and Shinji alone to thank for her survival. No thanks to Asuka who turned to beat a retreat while demanding she and Shinji keep fighting.

The finally emptied beaker clattered to the ground, shattering to glass shards as Rei dusted herself down as she took a final summarizing view of the final result of Dr Ritsuko's unfinished yet greatest invention.

The plain and short bob which made even Rei herself ashamed was no more. The getup which would made even the most self-hating and style unconscious introvert laugh at her in disgust was gone.  
A few minutes ago, Rei Ayanami was on the run from the fashion police for being the antithesis of everything beauty and glamour stood for.

Now the fashion army would come after her for breaking every known boundary of style and grace known to not just mankind, but the heavens themselves.  
Rei's new hairstyle stretched all the way to her waist, seemingly as endless as the universe itself.  
A single look at her new reflection gave her all the bravery and confidence that untold years spent sucking up to her creator not knowing better didn't.

Now she was ready to go and find her Shinji. And she wasn't just Rei anymore. She was his Rei.

"Er miss. Are you alright in there?" A nervous young waiter with blonde hair asked as he came over to the other side of the door to investigate the ear splitting screams that she had been forced to evoke during the incredibly painful makeover which was necessary for her to having any chance of getting Shinji back after all the atrocities she had committed to him.

"Never better." Was the brash and certain reply he got from the usually silent loner with no conversation experience and even worse self-worth.  
The instant the door opened, a pool of blood gushed from the boy's nose causing him to faint almost immediately, love hearts in his eyes.

"K, Kawaii" he managed to stutter with his last breath, a grin of absolute contentment on his face.

The same reaction was soon the fate of every guest in the crowded eatery when they took one glance at the long-haired bluenette gracefully striding past them with her head held high.  
A carpet of red fluid covered the until then perfectly polished oak flooring and the cashier at the front of the café quickly turned his back to face the phone on the wall.  
With shaking hands and sweaty palms, he dialled 911 as the customers and his fellow staff members fell like dominoes, all of them with love hearts in their still wide open eyes even as they lost consciousness.

He knew that one look however tempting, and he'd join them in the emergency room requiring intensive nose blood transfusion which would cost more money than he made in ten years, that is if the hospital even had enough blood to spare. The first sight of the new Rei Ayanami would be your last.

Ignoring the massive crowd of adulating fans her new appearance was attracting, Rei headed directly for the top floor of the nearby shopping mall.  
She still needed more than what she had already done to have any hope of convincing Shinji that she could no longer continue her abominable activities having come to truly love him and everything he stood for.

She would pay for the merchandise with a golden watch that Gendo had given her during one of their deeply unpleasant meetings together which she secretly dreaded despite not knowing why (The tough financial times the country was going through made any item with Gold in them an acceptable form of payment).  
Another one of his fake gifts to feign his supposed sympathy for her.  
It had fortunately failed to endear Rei to the scheming villain, but the value it provided would be the final tie in the knot that would finally bring two mistreated children together at long last.

An unconscious patient about to be wheeled away in a stretcher to the hospital to be treated for a bleeding nose managed briefly to regain sight for one second to catch sight of the same girl from earlier with the long pale-blue hair, now clad in an expensive matching coloured dress and a cross symbol necklace similar to the one worn by Major Misato. The ultimate symbol of piety and purity.  
She carried a heart shaped pink box of chocolates whose price tag read 666 yen. Shinji loved chocolates almost as much as he did ice teas.

His heart could not take it and he soon went into cardiac arrest.

"Too cute" he wheezed in the one final second of his mostly miserable life which had been redeemed only by his final sight.

It was seeing this which finally signalled to Rei that she had done enough to begin looking for Shinji before Asuka found him first.  
It was a race in which there could only be one winner. No runner ups and no consolation prize.

She only prayed her change of heart hadn't come too late and that Shinji would have the faintest chance of believing she had really changed before he slammed the door in her face.  
The one thing that stood between them now was the geographical barrier that each NERV member's address and contact details were to kept confidential and secret to everyone except the big man they reported to.

Rei was about to hit herself over the head at having no idea to combat this terrible inconvenience, when a familiar blur of red that she would usually have hoped not to have to see came around the corner on the other side of the road.

"What an idiot" Rei heard a familiar mocking voice say as Asuka looked at a beggar on the other side who was still trying to keep his nose covered from his earlier sighting of true beauty.  
She ducked behind a pillar as Asuka continued walking straight on seemingly still lost in thought.

Rei waited for her fellow pilot to take a few more steps of a head start forward before cautiously beginning to follow from a distance, taking care never to let her sight off the red haired German.  
She had to go back to the place she, Shinji and Major Misato shared sometime and when she eventually did, Rei intended to be there.

Asuka would lead her exactly where she wanted without realizing it.

Rei took careful notes of every landmark and sign they passed. She needed to know exactly where Shinji's home was so that she could get back there next time without a guide.  
Fortunately, an artificial clone created with the most advanced technology from the second most technologically advanced laboratory in the known world was gifted with photographic memory and Rei memorized each step as a camera might memorize the photo's it took.

"I am not a doll Asuka. Stop treating me like one." Rei muttered to herself firmly, trying to leave behind the unpleasant memory of a lifetime of hesitation in which Shinji had suffered all the while.  
The one person to treat a non-human who wanted to be human, like a human. And now it was his time to be justly rewarded for his lifetime of selflessness at long last.

"I am not your slave, Mr Ikari. Stop treating me like I am."

This was very similar to one of the many books Rei had read in the excess of free time she had to herself being the one the commander worked the least hard.

"Stop pretending you care about Kyon, Haruhi. You don't. You really don't. Nagato does. But not you. Ironic isn't it that Nagato, an android has more humanity than you, an omnipotent being who can destroy entire worlds."

She just had to make this parallel as Asuka led her through the maze of streets which would eventually lead back to the apartment of Shinji.  
She wondered what Asuka's reaction would be to the new look that gave half of Tokyo-3 a near fatal nosebleed severe enough to be hospitalized and one man a fatal heart attack.

For once in her life, Rei was treating an activity as an active competition where winning was the only thing. And she was actively competing against Asuka Langley, the top ace who never lost to anyone against anything and despised losing with a fiery passion.

But Rei had a feeling she had already won. There was no way Senpai Shinji wouldn't notice her now. This was merely her victory walk across victory road before the trophy collection ceremony.  
For the first time in existence, she would win and Asuka woud lose.

She realized as the dirty edifice of a clearly very worn apartment came into view that Shinji's niceness was what finally gave her the ability to perform the actions outside of her programmed parameters as she was now. What had finally opened her eyes to the traitorous nature of her creator who she now knew never cared about her well being at all.

Now she knew the human title given to the feeling that had been growing stronger inside since she first locked eyes with her Shinji.  
It was the feeling of true love.

"Notice me Shinji-kun. Notice me Senpai" Rei prayed, keeping her fingers tightly crossed.

_Props to everyone for reviewing. I do read every review and all reviews are gratefully appreciated. Please tell me what you'd like to happen next and how you're finding my work so far.  
And thank you all for being so awesome._


	15. Mari's childhood Part 3(finale)

**Chapter 15: Mari's childhood. Part 3: The beginning of Mari Makinami Illustrious**

_It is said that when the long-lived creature known as an Elf is born, they are given a name by the parents who birthed them. Upon reaching the Elf equivalent to adulthood, the now mature Elf then chooses another name, this time by themselves for themselves as a symbol of maturity – Dungeons and dragons handbook section concerning playing an Elf. _

"You asked me earlier why even though I'm from England, I don't have a more English sounding name". Mari wistfully explained as she turned to stare for a few moments at the tangerine sunset sky of Tokyo-3, a paradise Shinji now knew was only possible by unleashing hell onto every other nation.  
Funny how so many supposed utopias in both the animated and the real world only got where they did through distasteful atrocities no sane man would condone if they knew the truth.

It really was the slave trade and the holocaust all over again. History really did repeat itself in the most tragic way possible.

He was interrupted from his pointless train of thought when she turned back to face him with the expression, he least expected in the middle of her bleak life story that she was sharing for the first time in her life.  
She was beaming at him as a eager little kid beamed at Superman, like a Greek commoner looking upon the great hero Hercules. The admiration in her wide eyes nearly matched their moistness as she dabbed at a tear trail on her face as she continued the story to a bewildered Shinji whose jaw was dropping further with every word she said.

"That's because, Mari was a name I only took on later".

…

Marie woke to the sound of indecipherable words being spoken in a dialect she had vaguely heard about. The meaning of the words she could make no guess at.  
Blinking a few times to snap herself back to the world of the living fully, Marie cautiously dared a slight upward glance to see that she had somehow ended up in the back seat of a car and that the speakers who had roused her were the driver and the front seat passenger who still their backs turned to her.

A seatbelt had been secured onto her and when she felt that her forehead was surprisingly dry, she touched the spot where she had struck a branch to find a carefully applied bandage blocking the wound.  
As the last of the blurriness obscuring her sight faded away, Mari could see that the two strangers in front of her both had brown hair just like her, the driver's significantly longer.

The driver was wearing a white lab coat while the passenger an expensive if plain white shirt. Neither of them looked to be like the men in military uniforms who had nearly claimed her life a moment ago. A surge of terrible guilt coursed through her as the dying cry of her stray bullet's victim caused her to whimper fearfully in great sorrow.

She really didn't mean to hurt that man, even if he was one of the bureaucratic killers who left her an orphan. And as strange as it was to pity a monster, she hoped that man didn't have a family of his own or that if he did, they would be fine without him.

Words of the unknown dialect sounded around the cabin as she made that sound, the nervous but relieved tone of voice seemingly belonging to that of a shy young child announcing a cheerful bit of news. The words that replied them were spoken in a much more composed and methodical tone which seemed to give the vibe of a responsible but still young parent gently reassuring her child that all was still right in the world. Marie guessed from the pitch this was a woman's voice.

Marie begun to weep as she continued to listen to a deeply emotional conversation she didn't even understand. The voices reminded her of when her dad was still alive and patting her to sleep even as a thunderstorm thundered outside the paper-thin walls of their cottage.

She had no time to further mull over her awkward situation as the car begun to abruptly slow down before stopping on a hard shoulder of an empty motorway and the figures in the front of the car cabin turned around to reveal the pale Asian faces of a woman and a boy slightly younger than her.

Despite a warmth in their eyes that Marie herself couldn't completely describe, her heart was in her mouth as they looked at her with a friendly mixture of concern and relief. They didn't look like killers at all, but six days spent evading NERV and a bad childhood ruined by the same people, had taken its toll on Marie's usually reasonable nerves.

It was the young woman in the white lab coat who spoke first, her unusually soft voice acting as a stress reliever causing Marie to tremble a little less extremely.  
"Don't be scared dear. It's alright. You're among friends now and we're here to help you." The driver said in easily passable, if slightly accented English. It was evident from the intonation that it was not the only foreign language this scholarly looking adult had dabbled in. Marie could admire that.

"Do you speak English?"

Marie shyly nodded, her natural instinct since childhood being to let even those that she was familiar with to speak first.

"Oh, that's good. We found you on the road passed out. It's a good thing my son Shinji saw you as we were going by. I was driving very quickly on the other side of the road, so I nearly didn't notice you until Shinji pointed you out at the last second." The driver calmly explained while the boy "Shinji" gave a curt nod and a mhmm.  
He seemed to be cross with himself and apologetic to the girl he had just saved, that his linguistic skills were not as strong as his mother's.

"He looks freaking adorable." Marie could not help but muse to herself despite her lingering doubts about her situation and these strange people who had mysteriously appeared to help her.  
Something in her chest stirred when she saw this boy which was something that had never happened when she interacted with any human, not even her dear father. She felt her heart was a cuckoo-clock that could spring out that very instant and as painful as that was, she liked it.

Being a nine-year-old girl who had spent the majority of her childhood buried in a book while cold and starving, she would not discover the reason that the six-year-old boy caused the deep blush on her cheeks until years later.  
And when she did, the memories of a day which she would forever describe as the best and worst day of her life would come back as vividly as if it were just yesterday.

The perfect appearance combined with the perfect personality of selflessness. At just six years of age.

"What's your name, dear?" the woman asked curiously.

She fidgeted nervously. As attractive and nonthreatening as she now found the two kawaii Japanese Anime characters who had rescued her from certain death, she was still paranoid from her run from NERV.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell us, dear"

This considerate reply to her silence had the exact opposite of it's intended effect.

"M, Marie." She managed to stammer after several tense seconds of telling herself that it was impolite not to introduce herself to anyone who was not trying to snipe her down with a gun.  
"Marie Simon Bishop. The first and only daughter of Martin and Theresa Bishop" The second part of her introduction came out upon seeing the curious look in Shinji's dreamy eyes. It would be a shame to leave this loveable little ball of innocence without even giving him her name and at least some of her basic details for him to remember her by.

"Marie. That's a nice name." The woman kindly commented.

"Yeah. It's the name of a famous scientist in the twentieth century."

"I know. So, Marie, where are your parents? They must be worried sick about you."

Tears begun to form but Marie forced herself to continue. As far as she was concerned, this mother and her son were one hundred and one percent trustworthy.  
"My mum died before I was born, because NERV got stingier with its taxes. And dad. Dad died when he tried to make the world a better place with his protests. He was killed by vengeful NERV agents who tried to kill me as well. I was trying to get away from them."

"Please believe me." Marie begged as her eyes begun to scan her rescuers in more detail. "NERV are bad people who…"

She stopped talking when she caught sight of the woman's ID tag which in her initial gratitude of being saved she had ignored.  
Written in small but easily legible bold letters at the top of the card taped to the woman's lab coat, were the four letter word Marie had sworn to spend her life fighting.

"What's wrong dear?" The woman asked, instantly noticing the pallor and hysteria coming over her.  
"What's the matter?"

"Get away from me." Shouted Marie, completely disregarding that she was saying these hurtful things to her saviour. "You're a NERV agent. Let me out! I don't want anything to do with you. YOU'RE GOING TO TRY AND KILL ME AS WELL!"

She tried to jerk towards the door only to discover that her muscles were still pounding with exhaustion induced cramps and her seatbelt was still on.  
It took an apologetic frown from Shinji to bring the brunette back to her rational mind.  
Unable to communicate effectively, he resorted to simply looking at her with pleading puppy-dog eyes while pointing at his mother.

"Yes, Marie dear. I'm truly sorry." the woman replied, putting a hand to her head as if to comfort herself as she did so. "I'm truly sorry about what we've done. But I promise, I'm not like what you think. I don't support what we do at all. The entire reason I'm a part of NERV at all, is so I can try and change it for the better. I'm not going to hurt you, Marie. I promise. I just want to help you."

Marie put on a slightly less angry, doubtful groan but still did not seem completely convinced.

"Please believe me Marie. I'm truly sorry about what happened to your parents, but really, I just want to make the world a better place like your daddy did." The adult much older than Marie wept desperately. Adults really did cry after all. The nicer ones at least.

"Please" Shinji uttered, one of the few English words a six-year-old Japanese boy understood. The one word that Marie needed to truly buy everything.

So, a female James Bond then, Marie joked to herself as her expression reverted back to a trusting smile.

"I guess I can trust you, Adult. Your son seems like a good boy and I trust him."

The woman seemed to take a moment to register Marie's affirmation of forgiveness. She continued to look desperately at Marie but say nothing.

"I trust you." Marie repeated. "Thank you for saving my life."

The sheer relief and gratitude in the grown-up's next words made it seem as though she was the one thanking Marie for being saved rather than the other way around.  
"Oh thank you. Thank you. I'm so relieved."

She took out a metal flask from the front-seat drink holder and undid the lid.

"Drink some water Marie dear. It will help you get your strength back. The next services station is still a long way away and this should help until then."  
She passed the container over to the grateful nine-year old in question who begun to chug it down so quickly her onlookers feared she would choke.

"My name is Yui by the way" the woman added as she restarted the engine and drove the car back onto the still empty motorway after quickly glancing around to see that both Marie and Shinji had their seatbelts on and putting her own on. "Yui Ikari. I'm the vice CEO of NERV as well as its chief scientist."

"Yui Ikari?" Marie asked, having vaguely memorized thanks to her keen memory, a newspaper clipping from some time ago showcasing the head honcho of the despised mega corporation in all his distrustfulness. "So that means…"

"Yes, dear. I'm Gendo Ikari's wife and Shinji here is our beloved son."

Shinji turned his face to her with a shy smile and waved as if to say, "Even despite that, I'm nice."

It took some time spent reflecting on this information in cold silence before the young but scholarly girl asked her next question. The warmth that had been present in Yui and Shinji's eyes since the second this conversation had begun provided her the confidence to finally vocalize her next query.

"Why did you marry such a monster if you yourself are as selfless and well-intentioned as you claim. Can you not see what's happening around us that Gendo is a sadist who speaks only lies?"

A few tense seconds of silence before Yui's reply came out choked with subtle but still noticeable sobs.

"His lies fooled me as well, Marie. I honestly believed he was a nice man when I first met him in University, and he romanced me right in. Oh, what I fool I was then. If I could go back in time and stop us from ever meeting, believe me I would. Now Shinji has to deal with having both an abusive father and a stupid mother who can't do anything to help him see the good in life."  
Yui choked back a sob as she finished her sentence causing a sharp needle to pierce into Marie's very soul. She was internally smacking herself for being so quick to misjudge this heroic humanitarian.

"Gendo wasn't always like this. I used to think he wanted to make the world a better place as well. He told me he wanted to fix the world's problems and keep everyone safe from the Angels too. And that's why he built the EVA's. I really didn't know what he was doing. But now that I do, I'm determined to do whatever I can to stop him and save Shinji from him."

Marie was about to ask the obvious question of why she didn't just kill that asshole in his sleep but a single recollection of the anguish contained in the voice of the dying NERV gunman she had been forced to kill in so called "justified self-defence" quickly caused her to slap her own mouth shut.  
Of course this saint could never dream of doing such an atrocious act and lowering herself to his level.  
What kind of example would that send to her innocent little angel of a son, if she did that?

Instead Marie silently made a vow to herself as the rest of the ride continued in wordless contemplation, that from this day onward she would never view killing and maiming as more than a last resort after every other method had been thoroughly exhausted.  
She would sooner shoot herself than put more blood on her already forever tarnished red hands.

The Westerns and Superhero shows got it wrong and so did the history books showcasing the glory of every country's part actions including her own. There was no glory or honour to be gained in killing and warfare.  
And even if no judge ever sentenced a murderer to anything, everlasting Guilt was already the worst punishment anyone could be dealt.

A young Briton soldier shooting a young German whose situation was no different from his own was dishonourable in every sense of the word. A friendly talk over a warm fire and a nice meal on the other hand, was where the true honour and glory lay. And this was not something they taught you in school.

They reached the aforementioned service station in less than an hour where the three travellers brought fish, sausage and chips. A remnant of England's old culture which still remained after the impact but would also soon die out as the seas and pastures became more contaminated.

They ate quickly since Yui stated that her husband was a very impatient man who enjoyed doing very cruel things when his schedule was not respected.  
They left the charming little diner just as a group of NERV agents with holstered guns came round a far corner.

"So what do I do now, Yui?" Marie asked as they got back into the car and drove away, now fed and energized. "I can't stay here, or they'll kill me."

"I know dear. So what I'm going to do is get you out of the country. I'm going to take you to a place that only I know where you can get your identity changed. They'll change your fingerprints, your face and for good measure, they'll give you a haircut and a different set of clothes. You'll have to make up a new name for yourself when you get there, and it has to be different enough from your name now for no one to guess it's you. Do you understand me?" Yui calmly but firmly and hastily explained as she increased speed.

"I guess so." Was the one thing the soon to disappear Marie could say.

"Once you've done that, I'm going to put you onto the first plane that leaves for Tokyo-3. There's an airport in the same city as well. It may not be ideal, but it's the only country that I know off where at least some of the people still speak English that's far enough from here for them to give up the search on you eventually. Not to mention it's one of the few places in this terrible world which might still have an orphanage and basic life needs. You'll have to go alone, without me or Shinji. So good luck and just follow the instructions."

"Why can't you come with me, Yui?" It wasn't fair. It just wasn't. The first two genuinely nice benefactors she had met since fleeing her home who had shown her so much were leaving so soon.

"Gendo won't allow us to do that Marie. I wish I could come with you, but if Gendo sees me with you, he will not be happy. He's a very jealous man. He already hates me for giving some of my attention to our son. And if I try to run, he'll just find me again. And I don't know what that means he'll do to me or our Shinji. And I"

The tears that had been collecting in Yui's tear glands finally overflowed and broke out in hot and sticky trails down her cheeks, unseen luckily by Marie who could unfortunately still hear them in her voice. "I can't put Shinji in danger like that. He's just a nice little boy with bad parents. He doesn't deserve any of this. I'm sorry."

"Please don't cry. It's not your fault Yui. You're a lovely parent and I understand. I'm sorry for even suggesting that."

One hand moved off the steering wheel for the driver to dab her face briefly with her sleeve.  
A few more coughs and chokes.

"I really wish I could do more for you, Marie dear, but you have to do this on your own now. And I know you can do it. You've come this far already. We're going to get to Heathrow soon and we'll drop you off next to the building where they do Identity changes. They'll give you a passport when they're done. I'll give you enough money for both your new identity and a ticket to Tokyo-3. Hopefully there'll still be enough money after that to last you a while after you get there. The rest is up to you."

Not long later, the car pulled into the pseudo capital known as Heathrow. As many people had mistaken Barcelona to be the capital of Spain instead of Madrid and Shanghai to be the capital of China and not Beijing, the same mistake was often made by foreigners unfamiliar to England both pre and post impact.

It had largely escaped the Impact unharmed for some reason and was now at least 3 times as populated and 10 times wealthier than the actual seat of power, London.

Time seemed to fly and before Marie could register much, the car had already stopped in a far backroad of a dark alleyway where not even a lamppost illuminated the darkness of the night that had swept round by this time.

"Here we are Marie. Now go down and do as I've told you to."

Marie undid her seatbelt with trembling hands as she slowly stepped onto the pavement.

"Goodbye and good luck. I hope you can live a good life." Yui sobbed as she forked out a small shoulder bag. "The money is in this bag. It's all I can give you. I have to go now. My husband needs me."

"Thank you for everything, Yui. But is there nothing I can do for you for all your niceness?"

The until now mostly silent Shinji looked at her then whispered something into his mother's ear in Japanese.

"Keep smiling and being optimistic" the Japanese scientist requested as she anxiously peeked around the empty alley. "Keep moving forward even when it seems hard. Do it for Shinji's sake. He likes you a lot and he has absolute faith in you."

"I promise I'll do that." Marie solemnly vowed as the woman and boy already begun to climb back into their grey Toyota car, clearly serious about their insistence that Gendo was an impatient and violent nutcase.

"Tell Shinji, I love him and that I wish the same for him." She managed to call out just as the car sped away, not wasting a second.

"Well, this is it." The girl whispered to herself as she begun to take angsty steps to the door in front of her. With eyes half closed and hands trembling, she knocked.

She was the one who knocked and not the guy opening the door to get shot.

A big and burly giant opened the door on a chain, looking her up and down.  
His body was a bundle of muscle with oily dark hair, garbed in a tank-top despite the cold weather and wearing a scowl that clearly stated he did not like company in general.  
He growled like a dog as he held out a hand. "One thousand pounds" he rumbled in a voice deeper than the Pacific Ocean. It was clear he didn't like talking either.

She tried to keep a straight face while reaching into her pocket to pull out one fifty note pound after another, relieved that there were only fifty-pound notes in the bag she now had around her shoulder.

The giant counted the notes carefully before reluctantly stepping aside and beckoning Marie onto a chair in the middle of the very plain room which was bare save for a few cupboards.

The next few seconds were painful as an operation inevitably had to be, but from Marie's close shave with death in the previous days, this was mild in comparison.  
She kept still and her eyes closed as the giant made various surgical changes to her hands, then her feet and then her face. She knew that this was the deathbed of Marie Simon Bishop. NERV had succeeded in putting her down after all, just not in the way they might have hoped.

After what seemed like an eternity, the drilling and scraping noises stopped and the giant held out a pen and a piece of paper where the only writing on it was "signature:"

This was it, Marie thought to herself as she took the writing utensil gratefully and put the nib to her forehead for a few moments. This was where she officially died.  
Where an old life ended, and a new life begun.

She could already tell without the need for a mirror that her face while similar, had been altered so that it was undoubtably impossible to deny that her new appearance was far vastly different. Her hair had also been cut to the point where it no longer had any chance of covering her eyes.

This was where the proverbial Clark put on his superman outfit and never took it off again. Where Usagi put on her Sailor outfit and kept it on forever.  
Where Bruce Wayne ordered his faithful butler Alfred to dress up as him and fake an accident such as a pretend car crash where the car caught on fire but Alfred secretly got away unharmed to begin a much deserved gainful retirement while he changed into his Batman suit, never to contact Alfred again as he left forever.

After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality only two minutes, Marie wrote a name onto the signature paper taking care to slope her hand as she wrote. Just like Jekyll when he was doing the same when transformed into Mr Hyde.

The name she eventually decided to write: Mari Makinami Illustrious.

Her first name may have seemed far too identical to her previous one on paper. But she knew from her experience of being in the same classroom as an Ellie and an Ellis, a Carl and a Karl and a Catherine and Katherine that it was more than enough of a difference to trick the world while remaining relatively true to herself.

She also drew inspiration from the one film she had managed to watch at her friend's house which had solidified her love for Anime and a sacred desire that she'd one day get to go to Japan by any means possible. The film, My beautiful girl Mari.

Her second name came as a result of hearing Shinji use the word "Nami" many times when he talked. From the cheer he had when saying it, Mari guessed it to mean that it must have been something good in Japanese. The Maki bit was completely random and a result of her mind spinning a random word generator and adding it to the beginning of Nami because it sounded nice enough and enhanced a rather short middle name to seem posher and fancier.

Seeming posh and fancy was key in convincing NERV that she was not simply not worth their salt, but that she would be a refined lady of elegance worthy of their positive attentions.  
This would also be a pleasant surprise unbeknownst to Mari in the moment, when years later she met her fellow EVA pilot Rei Ayanami.  
Who she would consider her only other friend in NERV sans Shinji.

The two Nami's, they would jokingly call themselves during the one short but fairly pleasant conversation they shared, which had been enough to earn Rei one of her few rare smiles.

Illustrious intended to drive home the key aspect of the new personality she was about to adopt to match her new name.  
Just as some family's ended their names with terms such as Merry and Jolly in an attempt to embody these traits.

It intended to point attention to the fact that the fictitious family Mari would later make up to further the disguise, were no country bumpkins with no grasp of advanced English vocabulary.  
That they must have been pretty successful to name their noble house after a word only the most devoted scholars could hope to fathom the meaning of.

"Farewell Marie" Mari eulogized as she signed a few other papers, changing her address to a street name in Cambridge (the city of geniuses) which her father had once read about in her bedtime stories and finishing with a made-up postcode. "You lived a good life in spite of your flaws and the sacrifices you made will be forever appreciated."

A few moments later, the big and burly muscle man handed her a passport and a mirror.  
She did not need to look into either to know that this was the birthday of Mari Makinami Illustrious.

She thanked him as she collected her bag and dropped another fifty-pound note into his unflinching hands before heading out onto the streets into her new life.

As she stepped out onto a much more well lit and crowded street to flag down a cab for the airport, she begun to list to herself the many changes Mari would have in comparison to the now deceased Marie.

Where Marie was shy, Mari would be bold.  
Where Marie was self-hating, Mari would be confident and self-assured.

She would still be an avid reader but not spend entire days buried in her books at the expense of building the best network of friends she could gather.

She would be sure to brush up on her Japanese as soon as possible. So that the next time she met Shinji, she could tell him how much he meant to her in words he could understand without the need for a translator.

Since the biggest difference dividing Marie and Mari apart from each other is that while Marie spent her life chasing a way to selfishly destroy NERV in a self-righteous and petty vendetta, Mari's goal was to see NERV prosper and achieve its full glory.

The immature, whiny brat who single-handedly detested NERV more than any other person on planet Earth, was about to become it's second best pilot after Shinji.  
It was her new life ambition.

Mari had set her amount of love she had for NERV to M for mini, when thanks to Shinji being a part of it, it should have been set to W for wumbo.

…

Now Shinji was beginning to vaguely remember that he had once been to England as a very little boy with his mum back in his dad's more reasonable days when he took a business trip there once.  
He had given them some money and a little time to amuse themselves while he dealt with his organization's matters.

He remembered how he had come to that land hoping to see wonderous sights Japan couldn't match only to find boredom and disappointment in how dull and grey it had turned out instead.

His boredom had turned to anger. NERV and his father were what made it boring.

Shinji didn't really know why he didn't memorize this. Being an Eva pilot meant that he had been in multiple coma's and even barring that, concussion and other head related trauma symptoms were all too likely in the chaos of the battles he and the other pilots were forced to endure.

"I don't think Wumbo is a real word Mari" he noted, trying to make some small talk to lighten the serious mood a little as his mind tried to organize at least some of this new information.

"Yes it is!" was the unexpectedly feisty and fiery reply from his girlfriend who was clearly just as eager as he was to take a little break from this enjoyable but somewhat tedious walk down memory lane.  
"Wumbo is a real word. You know. I wumbo. You wumbo. He, she, we wumbo. Wumbo. Wumbo-ing. And most importantly of all, Wumbology, the study of Wumbo. It's first grade Shinji. My dad majored in Wumbology and got a doctor's PHD for it. It's the reason he was so clever even though he didn't finish school. It's also the course I took to get where I am today."

Well maybe Asuka and Misato should consider taking it too, Shinji said to himself as he made a mental note that from this day onwards, Wumbology would be the only subject he devoted his time and attention into studying.

_And here we are with this chapter. Thanks to everyone for reviewing and please keep them coming, each one brings a tear to my eye. I always did wonder why Mari didn't have a more British name._

_So now you see, every character has their story. It isn't just the main characters. The main character in one story is the side character in another one._


	16. Rei Vs Asuka

**Chapter 16: Rei vs Asuka. Or Nagato vs Haruhi.**

_Question: If Nagato and Haruhi got into a big fight, who would you put money on?  
What if neither of them had their powers and had to resort to plain old punches and kicks?_**  
**_What about if Kyon was watching._

"You don't really need to know what happened after I arrived in Japan aside from the fact that I did manage to have a reasonably good childhood in a reasonably caring orphanage" Mari Makanami concluded her story by saying to a still attentive but now slightly tired Shinji whose eyelids were beginning to droop. "Just know that I'm really sorry it took me so long to remember the promise I made and find you again. You have a right to hate me for that, Shinji. You have every right this second to disown me and refuse to forgive me. God knows what Asuka and your father did to you during these years."

"Nuh-uh Mari" Shinji instantly replied not even needing time for think before he spoke. "Never again. Now that we're together again, I'm never leaving you again. Screw what my father says, screw what everyone else tells us. We're meant to be together."

"Because" explained Shinji as he calmly put a hand onto Mari Makanami's shoulders. "You and I. We share the same soul."

…

"This is it." The other Nami murmured to herself as she shivered while stroking her new long blue hair. "The final standoff between Nagato and Haruhi Suzumiya. My Shinji-sama is in that apartment, and I have to stop Asuka and rescue him at any cost." She gulped but forced herself to keep her sight locked upon her terrifying target who looked even more violently furious today than usual.

Rei really was playing with fire. Before her was a foe far worse than every Angel mankind had encountered put together, but she knew that the altruistic Shinji did not approve of violence in the slightest. This really was the most dangerous mission for her thus far, and it did not even take place inside an EVA.

Rei waited patiently for Asuka to stop at a certain door in the apartment. It was at the very instant Asuka's hand begun to reach for the handle of the clearly very worn metal that Rei stepped forward and in a confident call completely unexpected of a non-human introvert, greeted her fellow pilot.

"Good evening, Asuka. How are you?"

She stood up straighter and struck the most badass movie hero pose she could muster as Asuka saw the commander's little miss perfect in her new garb.  
For Shinji's sake, she had to show Asuka she was not afraid of her anymore.

It was difficult to describe the flood of emotions running through the German redhead's mind as she caught sight of the new and improved Rei Ayanami.  
Asuka was unsure whether it was the newly extended waist length hair, the pale blue dress accenting her hair or that sparkling golden cross glittering like the sun which Rei had around her neck, which was causing the insides of her nose to feel very runny despite the warm weather.

She swore as she blinked twice to make sure she was not dreaming this crazy sight up, that a tiny blush had appeared on her cheeks which she quickly forced back. Her mouth had dropped open just a tiny fraction in those few seconds as the shocking and ridiculous reality that the commander's little miss perfect had indeed undergone a total makeover dawned on her.

A fleeting troubled look of fear flashed across the usually unflappable German girl's face, as a terrible mental vision of three girls from her middle school surrounding her to tease her flashed before her eyes.

"Stupid" one bully shouted.

"Brat" Another one crowed.

"Ugly" the last one spat as they continued to stand around her mocking before a second later, they had no emotion at all as three rapid punches clouted them full in the face, one for each of them. The other kids on the playground had backed away in silence from her after that.

Asuka shuddered helplessly as she stared at Rei fixatedly for the next few seconds, one hand clutching her nose and the other one curling into a balled fist.  
It was clear that even god himself would not be able provide her with a single good reason not to unleash this fist upon the non-human who was now a pretentious poser on top of being an unfairly elevated target of nepotism, the second her rage took one step further.

"What is this?" Asuka managed to eventually yell out, her sheer rage belied only by her envy and confusion in the moment. "What have you done?"

"You don't like it, Asuka?" Rei confidently replied, forcing herself not to sound too apologetic "It's the latest in high-end fashion."

"You look even worse than stupid Shinji in that stupid getup." Asuka insisted through clenched teeth as she was forced to clutch her nose even tighter, despite the burning hatred that was growing stronger inside her by the moment. "I'd rather watch an Angel throwing up than spend another second looking at you. I, I wouldn't spit in your direction if you paid me a million Euros."

She was doing a good job trying to sound intimidating and mean just like she always was, but there was something in the slight stutters of Asuka's sharp words which signalled to Rei that this time, she was not her usual cocky and confident self.  
A slice of humble pie had been successfully served to the irate German pilot today, however tiny it was.

That alone was worth more than all the money in the world to Rei.

"I didn't mean to offend you Asuka. I really didn't. I sincerely apologize if it's not to your taste."

"What are you doing here anyway? And how did you even find this place?" The impatient way in which Asuka was edging closer to the door indicated she was incredibly eager to get this confrontation over with as soon as possible.

"I followed you." Rei bluntly replied, the type of reply she preferred to use in her answers so as to make clear her intent in as few words as possible.

"You creep. And why did you do that?"

"I wanted to visit Shinji and see if he's alright. I worried for him and since the commander told me that he lives with you and Major Misato, I thought I could find him here." Explained Rei calmly and formally, ignoring the insult completely. This was a business meeting, not a mocking contest. She just needed to find the apartment where Shinji lived in so she could go inside.

"And why is that any concern to you, huh, you little suck up?"

"I'm worried about him. That's all." Rei insisted, looking Asuka straight in the eyes when she spoke despite the fact this caused the blue haired introvert to tremble uncontrollably.  
"Not that you'd understand" she managed to add as Asuka's frown grew angrier.

"Well you won't find him here. Not today at least" Asuka spat, finally growing a little weary of the constant cross-examination enough to cave in just a little. "He says he went to his friend's house, wherever that is and whoever would be stupid enough to hang out with him. Now go away. I have things to do."

Rei's small worm of doubt became a fat snake of panic. Her eyes widened as her heart started to beat faster. All of this preparation, for nothing.  
She had nearly killed herself to get nothing. Her world was crashing and tumbling and for a second, the self-hating and constantly frightened old Rei threatened to make a comeback.

No, the new Rei insisted as she forced old Rei back into her subconsciousness where that heartless coward would hopefully stay cowering never to emerge again.  
New Rei did not need another third wheel impeding her path towards her Shinji. There was no place for old selfish Rei in this sacred union.

She fidgeted a little to get her courage back before locking her red eyes onto Asuka more tightly than ever. She would find her Shinji today, or die trying.

"Come on Nagato. You can do this." Rei's inner self-motivation coach barked. "Don't let Haruhi continue to shirk responsibilities and keep loading them onto poor Kyon. It doesn't matter if Haruhi can destroy entire worlds Nagato, you're still a lot more mature and more responsible than that childish jerk".

"Would it be alright with you if I took a look inside anyway. I'd appreciate it Asuka" Rei politely asked, this time without trembling or shivering like the scaredy-cat she still felt trying to break out inside her.

"What?" Asuka was almost incredulous at this odd request. "Why? You can't just barge into my house and disturb my privacy like that. Go home to your commander so you can keep sucking up to him already.

Thank you for reminding me that my position is more senior than yours even if it means being in constant contact with that asshole, thought Rei as she formulated her response.

"As your senior pilot and the first child, I have full right to request an expedited search warrant of this property on an as-needed basis. Please give me the key and room number so that this matter may be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated."  
Rei somehow managed to sound just like a Gestapo officer vocalizing this request, and this caused smoke to billow from Asuka's now very red face as a loud train whistle sounded.

"Get out of my sight this instant Rei, or I swear I will tear you apart with my own hands. I don't give a damn if you're the commander's mum. This is not your house. You have no right to be here. So go, GO!" Asuka snarled, sounding more animal than human as she raised two shaking balled fists to drive home her point.

"Take one hit at me, and I will tell the commander about what you've done so that he gets you booted from NERV" Rei retorted, on the verge of shouting herself but restraining her voice as best she could for Shinji's sake. She spread her arms out as she did so as if daring Asuka to carry out the threat. "He'll be very cross that you've hurt his favourite little doll and will punish you accordingly."

"Die Monster, you don't belong in the world!" roared Asuka, having lost the last of her patience with the new version of the commander's little doll who was proving to be even more hard mouthed than the previous one. Perhaps she had been a little hasty in thinking that it would be better if Japanese were not as reserved.

Rei grinned in great satisfaction. Asuka was reading the script she had written for her to the letter, and it was the perfect time for the perfect set of rebuttals which would win her the argument.

"It was not by my hand that I'm once again given flesh." Rei chirped merrily, almost bursting into song. She had secretly learned sometime ago that this was not the first body her soul had inhabited, her previous body destroyed when the previous Rei was strangled for talking too much and for getting too close to Shinji. Gendo had delayed the inevitable, but not prevented it. Shinji was just too nice a boy to not fall for. "I was called here by HUMANS. Who wish to pay ME, tribute."

"Tribute!? You steal men's soul's and make them your slaves."

Oh Asuka thought Rei bemused, you would have done so much better in the acting business than here.

"Perhaps the same could be said of all religions." Rei touched her cross as she said this.

"Your words are as empty as your soul. NERV ill needs a pilot such as you." Snapped the now very at a loss for words redhead who was running out of steam.

"What is a NERV?" asked Rei feeling more powerful by the second. "A miserable little pile of secrets? But enough talk. Have at you."

Here Rei spread her arms out even wider as she smiled devilishly at Asuka.

"Come on then. Punch me. Let's see if you have what it takes. Come on. I dare you. I double dare you. Punch me quickly so that I can tell the commander about it. In fact, I'm going to go and tell the commander right now that you're being mean if you don't tell me Shinji's room number right now."

Rei was internally cursing herself for being so crass and sharp mouthed. But this had to be done for Shinji.

"And the commander's not going to care. And I'm not going to tell you anything. So, cyborg what are you going to do now?"

Oh no. Oh no. The terrifying image of Shinji being punched time and time again until the Angels took over the world and ate every single living thing alive was replaying itself in Rei's head again.  
She couldn't lose now. She just couldn't. She had said everything a cowardly introvert shouldn't have been able to say and Asuka still wasn't cracking.

A solitary tear rolled from Rei's left eye unseen by Asuka as she touched the cross around her neck, looked up to the sky and put her hands together in prayer for a solemn three seconds.  
She was praying for forgiveness from the terrible deed she was now being pushed to commit for not just Shinji but the good of the Earth.

Then without warning, she leapt at the taller girl and managed after a brief struggle to get Asuka's neck in a chin lock. Artificial humans had far better agility than real ones and fuelled by her concern for her sweetheart Shinji, Asuka was no match for Rei.

A faint memory echoed in Rei's mind that this was the exact way one of her previous incarnations had died, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"Let go of me, you little bastard." Asuka tried to say only for Rei to tighten her grip on her target so that the hold became considerably more painful.

"Tell me Shinji's room number right now. I really, really didn't want to do this, but you've left me no choice" Rei threatened, crying more tears as she did this. She was probably going to be sentenced to eternity in hell for this action, but she didn't care at this point.

"N, no" Asuka choked, beginning to feel the first effects of asphyxiation. Her eyes were beginning to roll uncontrollably but she was making one final attempt to assert her dominance over the nepotist non-human.

"Tell me." Rei demanded, tightening her grip even more. "Tell me the number right now and tell me the truth"

Asuka's life was beginning to flash before her eyes when she managed to weakly gag out her plea, now truly afraid of what new Rei was capable of doing.  
"Okay" she pleaded sincerely "okay, I'll tell you. It's room 613 on the sixth floor. It's to the left of the elevator. You can't miss it. I'm telling the truth, I swear. Now please, just let me go."

"And now hand me the key" requested Rei loosening her grip the slightest bit, to which a shaking Asuka fished out a set of two small silver keys, one slightly larger than the other tied around a plain ring, from a skirt pocket of her school uniform and threw it to the ground.

Rei kept a close eye on the now very frightened Asuka as she let her go, cautiously picked up the key and begun to step towards the apartment door. A single stray movement and Rei would be on her again in a heartbeat. Artificial human's had excellent vision.

"I don't want to hurt you Asuka, but you need to stay out of my way and start treating Shinji better." She concluded as she opened the apartment door with the bigger key and made her way inside, closing the door behind her, leaving Asuka to stand on the pavement locked out of her own house, for once as unsure as Shinji about what to do with her life next.

She really didn't know what to say for once in her life. She wasn't sure what the problem even was. Rei's Japanese reservations were gone but that did not make her any more likeable in Asuka's eyes, rather it only made her disgusting sliminess stand out even more glaringly.

It also wasn't that Rei didn't seem human enough to be capable of companionship. Far from it actually. The scientists at NERV had outdone themselves this time, in the worst way possible.  
Their attempt to create a life by artificial means had gone horribly right.

This Rei was indeed very human. Too human for her and anyone else's own good. She had mastered the skill which would put machines on equal footing with their human masters, and perhaps above.  
The ability no creator in their right mind would ever endow upon their creation.

Like Porygon 2, the direct upgrade to Porygon, this Rei had learned to perform functions beyond her programmed parameters. And she had chosen stupid Shinji to be the first human she formed a genuine bond with. Nerv's most mighty invention was not the EVAs at this point anymore. No EVA however well or poorly designed, turned against their makers on a hair trigger like this.

"Don't be so proud of this technological terror you've constructed, NERV" whispered Asuka still rubbing her neck as she turned to head to her friend Hikari's house to pass the remainder of the day.  
"You're all as much idiots as stupid Shinji."

And little did the now thoroughly jaded Asuka know, that she had not seen the end of this yet.

While one Nami she did not yet know about was providing Shinji the necessary confidence he would need to finally take back what was rightfully his, this Nami was soon going to sink the one thing Asuka had spent her life chasing down to rock bottom.

Asuka's ill-gotten reputation which was only earned by no one knowing the terrible things she did to Shinji behind closed doors, was going to be dragged through the mud.  
A NERV member without reputation was a NERV member already beaten.

Even if Asuka could deal with one Nami, two Namis could not be countered by anything.

_Rei is a relatively nice character who doesn't spend her days harassing and beating Shinji up. I therefore feel that she deserved a spot in the story where Shinji finally gets his much-deserved respect.  
However, she still allowed Shinji to be badly abused and actively took part in Gendo's plan to trick Shinji into playing along._

_Shinji has used a chokehold on Asuka in the series when he was very angry and fed up. It stands to reason therefore that Rei could do the same if she was provoked and desperate enough. She also managed to stop Asuka from slapping her at the last second during the infamous elevator scene, which does indicate good reflexes on her part._


	17. Reporter Rei Reports

**Chapter 17: Reporter Rei reports.**

"We should probably head back now. The sun's going down and we were lucky that NERV didn't give us another mission today." Mari suggested as a now very exhausted Shinji stifled a yawn. "We don't know what tomorrow will bring yet, and I can see that you're tired. Sakura's probably finished cooking dinner by now as well."

"Good idea" Shinji quickly agreed as he stood up from the bench and took Mari's hand in his own as they begun to head in the direction of her mansion.  
There was no telling when the Angels would attack again and having one day off had already been more than enough for him. Especially if it ended with one more of Sakura's world class banquets.

"You said before that my mum was still alive somewhere, Mari." Shinji added as the two friends walked together down the beautiful pavilion.

"I did say that Shinji. Yes."

"How?"

"It's complicated."

"Try to explain anyway."

"Well. In a sense Shinji, you could say that Yui committed suicide without really committing suicide. And that the one person giving her any purpose in the life she still has, is you."

"What do you mean?"

Mari's serious face from the day she revealed NERV's treachery to the then oblivious Shinji returned as she took one quick look to check that no one was listening in to the two of them. She looked Shinji with a stare that seemed to look deep into his very soul.

"EVA Unit one is your mother, Shinji. Your mum is trapped inside unit 1. That is why only you can pilot it, and nobody else. That's the reason your dad keeps you around despite the fact he despises you."

…

Rei's long blue hair tossed and turned behind her as she raced across the unwashed stone floor, jumped into the Elevator and hammered the button for the 6th floor so hard she nearly broke it. For all she knew, Shinji could be trapped in his room hungry, scared and injured. This meeting with Asuka had revealed to Rei that her fellow pilot was not above using extreme domestic abuse to get what she wanted.

Asuka ranked barely one step above the Angels she fought against. For Shinji to receive a black eye and bloody nose from fighting an emotionless alien incapable of thought was one thing. But to get one from his teammate and roommate with whom he shared both a room and a reason to live, was unacceptably immoral in every sense of the phrase.

And Rei herself had done nothing more than drive Shinji further into insanity with how little she had appreciated the good in him. It ended here and it ended now.

"I defy you Gendo" Rei forcefully remarked as the barely functional elevator finally flashed the number 6 on its floor screen. "A father incapable of loving his flesh and blood son, is incapable of loving his other children too."

From a small blue bag she had around her shoulder, she carefully took out the pink heart shaped chocolate box. She had kept it hidden knowing that Asuka would have torn it to pieces had she even caught sight of it. She did not like gifts being given to Shinji but loved taking everything she saw for herself.

Her mind was conjuring up happy images which made her blush with sentimentality as she located room 613 exactly where she had been told it was. Images of an overjoyed Shinji-Kun receiving the chocolate box with a heavenly beam devoid of any sadness, as he pulled his Rei-chan in for a full-blown kiss on the lips.

She nearly fainted at such a prospect but knew she had to maintain discipline to have any chance of getting even a fraction of what she had just envisioned. Not to mention that as much as she would have liked to keep hiding the part that she had played in his father's plan to trick him, she needed to tell Shinji the complete and honest truth.

Unlike Asuka, Rei Ayanami took full responsibility for every action and choice she made. It was what girlfriends did and just one of the many ways that she would prove herself completely different from that sociopathic scumbag.

With a sweaty hand, she unlocked door 613 and very carefully pulled it open. She had stumbled upon the living quarters that her Shinji had been forced to share with two of the most unpleasant members of the unpleasant company NERV.

To say that the room was as bad as Rei had predicted would be the understatement of the century. Empty beer cans and various other detritus lined every table in the kitchen and dining room. The bin was chock full of more cans of alcohol than Rei thought was possible to ever drink up in a lifetime.

A stack of grimy, slimy dishes was pilled haphazardly on the table beside the sink on the verge of a collapse. Rei dared not touch it lest a rain of glass pierce into her skin and cover this already messy suite in more mess which Shinji would no doubt be forced to clean up again in his valuable downtime from his piloting duties.

The floor was more filled with dust than a sawmill. Every breath was a struggle for even Rei, who as an artificial human had a superior respiratory system to even human top athletes.  
It was like asbestos poisoning but more severe.

A loud snoring in the other room caught Rei's attention and she quietly tiptoed into what looked to be a lavishly furnished bedroom. More beer cans were scattered across the incredibly wet carpet and a few were even placed on the nightstand table right next to the bed. One can was even left standing upright, still half full of fizzy cheap and strong-smelling alcohol.  
Rei covered her nose as she crept nearer for a closer look. She may not have been completely human, but even she knew that such an excess of alcohol could be nothing less than toxic to anyone.

This was disgusting.

Sprawled out with her feet on the pillow and her head on the verge of losing balance and tipping from the bed, without even wearing a duvet, lay the great and honourable Major Misato.  
Saliva was drooling from her mouth with every snore as she continued to periodically hiccup even in her sleep.

Rei could take it no longer. This was far, far worse than watching the Angels eat buildings and leak fluid after they were destroyed. She reached the dirty kitchen sink just in time as the contents of everything she had eaten in the past week flooded out of her mouth.  
She tried to stop herself, but nothing could stem the flow of vomit that continued to flood into the jammed up sink and onto the floor once the sink was full of her sick.

She eventually managed after a few painful coughs and pats on her back to get it under control. No one should have been forced to live in close proximity with a pig like that.  
Not Shinji and not even Asuka who Rei now saw no good in at all.

Never mind high ranking officers of the sole society in charge of shielding the last remains of humanity, this was not the good mark of a good guardian worthy of being let near fourteen-year-old child soldiers already knackered from a lifetime of endless battles.

No wonder Asuka could get away with anything she wanted in this home while Shinji took all the salt and rage in NERV despite being an above average pilot.

Something had to be done quickly. But what could Rei do?  
That's when she remembered a small but unmissable item, she had seen in Misato's bedroom earlier. It was a brief sight, but the shininess of the item meant that it could not be missed even in a sea of other messily scattered things.

Rei ran back into the still sleeping Major's room and from one of the many messy shelves, drew a slightly old and slightly cracked camera which she discovered at the click of a button, still worked fine.

Just as the first child and first pilot had the right to request expedited search warrants, Rei also had the right to re-appropriate any item she believed would be useful in NERV's cause of combating the Angels with maximum efficiency.

Looking upon the hiccupping and snoring woman who had been put in charge of Shinji's missions and care, like an assassin staring down their victim, Rei tapped the photo button repeatedly.  
The police needed evidence before taking action? They would get their evidence.

"You are not worthy of leading us pilots in our missions, Major Misato." Rei quipped in tranquil fury as she walked out of the room for the last time to get a few more photos of the rest of the apartment.  
Like a Hollywood camerawoman, Rei took snap after snap of every room taking care to zoom into the empty cans of beer each time.

She eventually found what she guessed to be Shinji's bedroom at the end of a long corridor. This was her last stop. Even though she had once again been unlucky not to find Shinji himself, all the remaining secrets she craved were through that doorway.

For a long time in her dreams, she had been trying to ponder what Shinji's room would be like. She gently pinched herself as she put a trembling hand on the knob to remind herself that this was reality.

It seemed at first glance to be a tidy and homely little bedroom, much more well cleaned and tidy than those of his ungrateful roommates, if a little lacking in material possessions for Rei's comfort.  
Perhaps Shinji just felt to live with less and wasn't so extravagant. At least Rei hoped this was the answer. The one object in the room was a big and battered radio, the paint quickly peeling off and covered in scratches.

It made Misato's camera seem brand new and cutting edge in comparison.

That was when Rei noticed a speck of dried blood on the otherwise spotless floor.  
It was but a few tiny droplets, but Rei still managed to catch it with her extra sensitive sight.  
Her alarm only grew when she found a half-finished packet of high concentration painkillers and an emptied glass on the beside table. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

A large human shaped mark covered the wall next to the bloodstain. It was as if something, or rather someone had struck it incredibly hard.

…

"It was an accident Asuka, I swear" Shinji helplessly pleaded with covered eyes, trying to back into his room as furious Asuka clad in only a bath towel crested him menacingly. "I really didn't know you would come out at that second and…"

He got no further as he was kicked full in the face, the force of the impact causing him to collide straight into the wall behind him as a few drips of blood trickled from his nose.

"Shinji needs love too." He muttered under his breath in ultimate anguish as he clutched his broken nose, trying very hard not to cry and give Asuka yet another reason to mock him further.

…

A drunk adult, a gentle boy who shook at the mere mention of violence against anyone and an irate girl with a hair trigger temper and no empathy living in one apartment. Blood and painkillers found in the room of the least violent member of the household. A big hole in the wall beside the blood.  
A five-year-old could crack the code.

Reporter Rei quickly flicked out her camera once again and photographed both these horrifying little details. This search was proving to be more fruitful than she thought it would even if she had failed to find her Shinji.

She would have loved to stay longer in this room, lying on the bedsheets of the boy of her dreams and appreciating how the very walls of this one space within the otherwise unbearable apartment echoed with solemnity and warmth.

But Rei knew that she had to get going. Shinji had gone now and there was nothing for her here either. She needed to get the truth out to the world before Asuka painted more floors red. The search for Shinji could wait.

Rei knew that Tokyo-3 had a broadcasting station somewhere in the city. Where it was exactly was simply a matter of asking directions and then getting there as soon as possible.  
It was the place where all of NERV's propaganda was filmed to keep the public in line. Only good news, no bad. Well today there would be.

She had already taken the few notes of petty cash which Asuka had placed in a little box on a shelf in her room. Rei knew instinctively that this was really part of Shinji's paycheque which had been unfairly extorted from him. He wouldn't get to spend the little money his hard work earned him, but at least it could be put to a good cause.

The good cause being the ticket Rei bought to hasten her journey to Tokyo-3 news station, camera in hand. One quote that NERV never quoted from the bible despite its fetish about that book, was that the meek would inherit the Earth.

Not the loudmouth, not the selfish and certainly not the violent bullies but the meek. Tonight, was the night of the meek.

…

"So, what do you have in mind for our plan to stop my dad?" asked Shinji between mouthfuls of exotic Sushi expertly prepared by butler Sakura. "Do we ambush him in his sleep? Do we steal some EVA's and go in guns blazing at him? What should we do?"

"The reason we became good friends in the first place Shinji, is because neither of us believe in pointless fighting. Your dad may be a very evil man, but we can't stoop to his level. Him and SEELE are not the only problems. Bad dictatorships like theirs don't just spring up overnight." Mari replied, sipping vanilla flavoured lemonade. "Asuka was right when she said that nepotism alone is bad for deciding who does what. Have you ever watched a series called Gundam?"

"I did, and I didn't like it one bit. One bad leader being killed just to be replaced by a worse one. It's horrible. It's the reason I don't like it when people bring up politics. Because that's basically what it's all about. A group of jerks willing to put the world at risk just so they can get more."

"And there's the problem. Whatever solution we implement to solve NERV and SEELE needs to take into account what the people want. Not what we want. The only way we're going to break the cycle of death and destruction is by being better than NERV and SEELE. To do the kind things they would not do."

"So a nonviolent coup then?"

"No coup Shinji. A good leader doesn't need to lie to get into power. How many revolutionaries have you seen who actually did a good job running their country after their revolution succeeded?"

The terrifying mental images of Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin kept Shinji completely silent.

"Exactly. And now let me ask you another question. Which pilot in NERV won the most battles out of any of them?"

"Uh…" Shinji thought of all the times he had been forced to confront a far superior opponent after both Asuka and Rei were knocked out cold. "You?"

"No. Shinji. You. And who never gets angry with anyone no matter how much crap they've put him through after all the good he's done for the uncaring world that can go screw itself."

"You?"

"Trick question Shinji. It's you again. And now, last question. Who made the courageous choice to save a complete stranger on the road with a gun in her hand, knowing she could be dangerous? When he was just six years old?"

Shinji wanted this twenty questions game to stop. He knew the answer to this question but the terrible self-image that had been firmly implanted in his brain of him being a heartless coward scared of his own shadow caught his tongue.

"Uhh. Uhh. Aaah" he managed to blurt out as everyone he knew including Mari begun to circle his mind shouting the words "Getting in the robot Shinji. Get in the f*cking robot".

"You made the decision to help me, knowing that when I woke up, I would see that you and your mum were both NERV agents, the very group of people that the I along with the rest of the world despised. That needed not only kindness, but bravery and faith too. You're not just not a coward Shinji, you're the bravest of us all. (and living proof that the bible didn't get it completely wrong with the good Samaritan story at least) A lot of people in NERV already felt the same way I feel about you long before I came. I can tell simply by looking at them, that just about everyone who even remotely knows you would kill to go out with you. This is the truth, Shinji, even if you don't believe it. You already, without knowing it, have a harem that would walk straight into the jaws of hell if you told them to."

"That can't be true Mari. It just can't and even you know it can't." Shinji shouted in unintended anger. His poor self-esteem was still choking him out of breath.

"To give you an idea of what I mean, I once asked Dr Akagi as a joke whether she would be ready to start a relationship with you given the chance. She did not take it as a joke in the slightest. She told me that nothing would have made her happier. That she would throw away everything she dedicated her life to just to run away with you. A woman three times your age, views you in a romantic way. And that's not a joke."

"That can't be." Shinji gasped, shaking his head violently. "I thought, I thought everyone hated me."

"You know I'm not a good liar, Shinji. And you know that even if I could bring myself to tell a lie, I could never do it without good reason to the boy who saved my life. The bottom line is that everyone loves you Shinji. Everyone who isn't your dad and Asuka, that is."

"But what does all this have to do with saving the world?" asked Shinji, desperate to stop the torrent of praises he was being showered with that he still felt he didn't deserve.

"My plan Shinji is that we get everyone to vote. We hold a completely democratic election to see who gets to be the new leader of NERV and then that person will make the positive changes that NERV needs to be what it originally was meant to be. And that you and I both already know who the winner of that election will be."

"Who, Mari, Who? Who could be so popular and amazing like how you described, to have what it takes to replace my dad as the new head of NERV?"

Mari giggled a little to herself. Shinji's complete modesty when it came to himself was just one of the many things, that Tokyo-3 and soon the world would come to love about NERV's wonderful new leader.

…

Tokyo News station came within view as Rei came out from an alley, she took to avoid the crowd of fans her new appearance had attracted. The train ride had been something with everyone abroad the crowded cabin with their eyes fixed on her like a pack of wolves looked at their next meal which they'd have to fight over.  
She wasn't sure she liked this better than when everyone ignored her even when she was shouting out loud. But it would hopefully help her sell her story.

It was a tower of black metal and glass, seemingly devoid of any other colour. A bleak place in the middle of a bleak city even before the impact.  
And Rei knew the meaning of bleak better than anyone, having been born and raised to be the epitome of bleakness in preparation for the awakening of an incredibly bleak beast, hell bent on bringing bleakness to everything it saw.

"Bless me with your blessing just this once, all loving lord." the total atheist sincerely intoned, touching her cross necklace. "And if all fails, unite me and Shinji in our next life."

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to take the painful steps through the automatic doors of the building where as expected, a running man carrying a gigantic stack of papers fell right over upon looking at her entry.

She ignored him and went straight to the reception desk where a big, unsmiling man in a plain black suit as black as the building he was in was looking into the distance with seemingly nothing to do.

"Excuse me sir." She begun, wanting to get straight to the point. "But would it be alright if I could present my story on the news briefly. It's a very important piece of news that I think all of Toyko-3 could benefit from hearing and it's urgency cannot be overstated, for I believe it to be of vital importance to at least the national security of our glorious country, if not global security."

The police would be too corrupt to even care, so the news was Rei's only hope.

The man did not look convinced in the slightest and continued to stare blankly into empty space.

"The information I wish to speak to Tokyo-3 about could potentially compromise the safety of the planet if not reported immediately" Rei restated, trying to sound as serious as she could. "It is the reason I did not go to the press or police with my story first. There's no time. The people must know the truth I am about to reveal, or we are all doomed."

The man did not even reply but pointed gruffly at the door through which Rei had come through. His nose had not bled in the slightest nor had his stern expression wavered throughout Rei's plea.

"I am NERV's top agent, sir. Everything I wish to disclose to the public will be done with NERV's best interests at heart."

"You have no appointment here." The man briefly and bitterly replied, still pointing at the door. "I do not care if you come from NERV or not. You are not chief Gendo and thus still do not have the right to interfere with our news broadcasts on such short notice such as this. Take your leave."

"I can make it worth your while, Sir." Pleaded Rei as she pulled the few remaining notes she had taken from Asuka and placed them carefully on the counter.  
She put on the Moe face that she and she alone could pull off as she did this. "Please, be kind to a young, innocent girl who only seeks to advance NERV's progress as best she can."

The man quickly swept up the notes and for a split second, Rei's spirits rose the slightest bit.

"You insult me with your poor sense of the costly times we live in, worthless urchin" the man mocked, still keeping his monotone voice. "I repeat once more. Take your leave before I order security to lock you away for loitering on these premises."

"Wait" interjected Rei as the man's finger reached out to press a button she could not see. "Please sir. I really can make it worth your while.

"And what will you pay with, worthless little urchin? Money? Currency? Valuable possessions? What a moneyless little beggar like you could possibly give to me to convince me otherwise, I cannot imagine. So, leave."

"I can" Rei had to swallow every bit of the miniscule amount of pride she had managed to gather in a lifetime spent endlessly being gaslighted and told she would never measure up to anything without her creator's help. "I can give you something valuable, more valuable than all the money in the world."

"And what's that." The man emotionlessly asked as he peered down briefly at a photo of a younger him smiling next to his now long-gone wife and daughter.

"A, a kiss." Rei stuttered forcing herself to blank out the image of every meeting she had been forced to endure with Gendo. "Let me report my story, and I can bestow upon you, a single kiss"

The man's stoic sternness and his incurable boredom vanished in a flash as Rei nervously finished her sentence. He took one more glance at the family photo and tears of great joy flooded from eyes. The last time anyone had offered him this priceless treasure, he was not the cold widow that the loss of his family to a hungry Angel had left him as.

His mouth shook up and down and he could not say a single words as Rei drew her face closer to his and planted a single chaste peck on his cheek.  
"Know that even if you seem all alone in this cold, bleak world, that I will always care about you sir" Rei muttered as she withdrew and bowed before the now blissfully sobbing pile of jelly the man had become. "I know that you still have a good heart."

He nodded wildly as he quickly dabbed at his tears with a sleeve, taking one more look at the little girl in his family photo as he did so.  
"Go straight to floor 6 and room 66." He quickly instructed. "The news channel finishes in less than ten minutes and you'll have to be quick. Go now before the others throw you out."

"Thank you sir" Rei quickly but gratefully called out as she leapt to obey his directions. "Take good care of yourself too."

She ran to the nearest elevator and hammered the button for floor 6, her hand on the door as the elevator climbed the floors and bolting out the split second it reached her destination.

She got to her intended room without meeting anyone else and not wanting to waste time, shot her Moe face once more upon pulling open the door causing every reporter in the room to faint with a blush.

She pushed the lead reporter closest to the camera out of the way even as she eyed the timer on the wall which had only a bit more than eight minutes left.

"I am Rei Ayanami" she quickly announced, knowing that time was ticking away by the second. "The first child and first EVA pilot of NERV. I interrupt your laughter at the expense of others, to bring you all an important newsflash whose importance cannot be overstated."

At the mention of these words, every smile upon every watcher in front of every television in the city went dead. Hikari who was now sat on her sofa beside her good red-haired friend Asuka to watch the evening news had briefly begun to laugh when she saw the reporters faint all of a sudden for unknown reasons, was now bending intently at the screen with a deadly serious scowl.

Why Rei's hair and clothes had gone all weird were the least of her worries right now as the overwhelming sadness in the bluenette's voice captivated her utterly.  
Asuka's mouth dropped and she begun to shake herself violently. The most shy and antisocial human being who was not even a human being in Tokyo-3 if not the known world, was on TV.  
Hell was freezing over. An Angel attack would have been a welcome return to reality at this point.

"Was? Rei? WAS MACHST DU DENN HIER?" Asuka demanded furiously in German, the digital image of Rei on a news channel corrupting her language lobes.

Shinji and Mari who had decided this evening would be as good an evening as any to see what the heck was up with the crazy world where nothing made sense, shared a matching look of surprise.

Shinji's more horrified and Mari's prouder that the other Nami was finally coming out of her shell in the most pleasantly surprising way possible. Shinji spilled his drink causing a massive puddle on the expensive carpet. "I'll get that" called Sakura as she left the room to go and get a mop.

"I have come to reveal two traitors among our midst. Two traitors whose lies have very nearly brought NERV and by extension the entirety of Tokyo-3 and the known world to its knees." Rei announced, keeping her eyes on the screen despite her shyness. "Two cold hearted tyrants who have besmirched the good name of the great and honourable NERV, undermining all that a noble organisation dedicated to the good of mankind is supposed to stand for."

She knew that the previous Rei died when Gendo sensed she was no longer loyal to him. And that as much as she wanted to bring down NERV along with Asuka and Misato, trying to do so at such an early stage would only result in a premature and painful execution and her memories of Shinji being erased once more.

Who knew then if Gendo were to make the clone replacing her a cold-blooded killer this time? What if this clone was programmed to murder Shinji and Nami brown (her informal name for Mari, the closest thing she had to a friend outside Shinji) instead of simply tricking Shinji into staying loyal to his father and to NERV?

She couldn't take that risk. She still had so many dates to go on with Shinji. And Nami brown still had so many laughs to share with Nami blue.

"As I will show you in the pictures I am now uploading, Asuka Langley has been bullying my fellow pilot, Shinji Ikari for years now. While the pictures I took earlier while inside Shinji, Asuka and Misato's apartment may be inconclusive as evidence, know that as the first child I hold myself to the highest responsibility of honesty in my actions and words and that for me to choose to lie at any time would be to undermine my own credibility, as well as the credibility of the great and honourable NERV as sworn guardians of mankind."

She put the face of the camera she had taken from Misato directly to the lens of the camera broadcasting everything she was saying and doing to every television and begun to flick through a few of the pictures of a very messy apartment full of empty beer cans.

The entirety of Tokyo 3 gasped in a mixture of fright and utter contempt. Drinks and popcorn begun to spill over every household, in one apartment the coke dripping onto the electric wires attached to the TV, short circuiting it.

"Major Misato Katsuragi was not wholly innocent in this entire affair either" Rei voiced over the images as she scrolled to the picture with the asleep and drunk purple haired officer in question. "Look at this picture. Does this seem any way for a reasonable and respectable military leader to behave around her two pilots? Does this set the example we need in these dark times when we pilots, along with the rest of you require a strong hand to see us through?

Everyone shook their hands contemptuously and stamped the floor. One man whose wall was plastered full of NERV propaganda jumped so hard that he broke the floor of his rundown apartment causing him to fall to the floor below screaming.

"She is a bad fairy." A three-year-old toddler screeched at the picture of Misato. "Blow her up!"

"You don't need me to tell you that any road on which Major Misato drives upon becomes an instant danger zone more dangerous than even the Angels." Rei added causing the viewers to jeer even louder as a group of security guards arrived from a nearby elevator.

"These two are the reason for our hero Shinji's below average performance. These two are the two tormentors who have conspired together to make a young hero's life hell. The reason why he is so reluctant to do his duty in spite of his wholly good intentions and above average performance as a pilot who none of us other pilots even combined together, could hope to hold a candle to. And with these two gone, there will be nothing to stand in the way of NERV's noble goals."

The picture of a human shaped hole on the wall of Shinji's room next to a bloodstain and some painkillers on a nightstand table was what caused Hikari to look upon the already flabbergasted Asuka with disgust.

"Get out of my house, meanie" Hikari ordered bluntly.

"Wait, you can't just order me like that. You're my best friend" Asuka protested nonchalantly at first but then quickly becoming more worried when Hikari's frown did not disappear.

"GET OUT! Or I'll throw you out. I don't make friends with meanies. And that's exactly what you've been hiding from me all these years." Shouted Hikari, reaching for a poker which she was now brandishing maniacally.

"I'll count to three. Stay after that, and I'll hit you the same way you've hit poor Shinji all these years." Threatened a now completely changed Hikari.

"One…"

"Wait Hikari. I'll have nowhere to sleep if you do that. I don't have any money because…"

Before Asuka had finished her sentence, Hikari had counted to three and then without warning brought the hard and heavy iron mercilessly to Asuka's arm, bruising it.

"Domestically abusive bullies who hurt others to feel good about themselves, deserve to be treated like domestically abusive bullies." Yelled Hikari as she laughed and cried at the same time. "Leave my house and never come back. And if I hear that you've so much as scratched Shinji again, I'll find you and break every single bone in your body."

Asuka opened her mouth to beg but Hikari simply raised the poker again, clutching her head while grinning maniacally. "Go now while I'm still completely calm, I'm going to count to three again and if you don't leave then, don't blame me for what happens next. One…"

Asuka took the cue seriously this time and booked it out of the apartment just as Hikari reached the count of 3 once more.

"I'M SORRY SHINJI. I'M SORRY!" Asuka heard her former friend hellishly bellow as the sound of breaking furniture echoed. Cold chills ran down her spine as she hurried down the stairs.

"You Japanese are not reserved enough" Asuka muttered angrily trying to belay her fright as she continued to descend as glass shattered in a room above her. "Don't you know to keep things to yourselves and not be such a loudmouth?"

"FORGIVE ME SHINJI. FORGIVE MEEEEE!"

Rei took a look at the locked door which was going to break at any second now that security was on to her. Then she looked back at the screen as the timer which now read 33 seconds begun to rapidly tick away.

"And Shinji. If you're listening to this. Don't worry. I'm coming to find you now. You don't have to be all alone anymore."  
Then she dove from the nearby window and slid down the gutter pipe just as the door gave way and the security guards swarmed the room to find only a groggy group of reporters just beginning to come to.

"WE HAVE TO FIND HER!" Shinji immediately crowed as an advert came on the TV. He looked to Mari expecting some warning about how Rei was not trustworthy as another member of NERV and a non-human without capacity for empathy.

The response he got instead, cemented the few gaps in the now ironclad trust he had for his new girlfriend who he would bring along with him no matter where he went.

"Damn right we do. Come on" called Mari as she leapt to her feet beckoning Shinji to follow with a quick arm swipe, breaking into a run when Shinji had connected his arm with hers.

"We're coming to find you, Rei. Hang in there" promised Shinji as they headed out the door and into the now pitch-black night sky.

"Hold on, Nami blue" Mari added.

…

As Ritsuko rose from the sofa taking in all that she had just seen from a not fully human girl, who had shown more emotion in those few seconds than most of her co-workers had shown in the years she had worked there, she drew out a pamphlet that an annoying hippie on the street had forced into her hand that evening but she had no time to throw away yet.

"Smokers anon" it read. "Together, let's beat the bad habit of smoking and the grave that sells itself".

She made a silent vow as she headed to brush her teeth and go to bed, that she was going to go there tomorrow if hell should bar the way. On the way, she took every remaining packet of cigarettes she had not yet smoked, opened the window of her apartment and threw them out.

"AND STAY OUT" Ritsuko shouted as the last packet fell into a bush below.

_Props once again to DarkScythe Drak, fictionelement777 and StraightedgeEpyon along with all my other reviewers. Every review is a wonderful gift to me.  
Another problem with Evangelion 3 was that Shinji was kept in the dark about a long list of details that could have spared everyone so much misery.  
I know it's probably played for laughs, but some of Asuka's punches and kicks against Shinji really would in real life be classed as severe domestic abuse. And no responsible parent would drink the amount Misato does and be allowed on the road.  
Also Rei did save Mari from dying at the end of Evangelion 2, so it stands to reason they would have a good relationship. _


	18. The rise of Mari Ikari

**Chapter 18: The rise of Mari Ikari: The day Shinji was no longer all alone. **

Shinji did his best to remain calm as he rode shotgun in the very sleek navy SUV being driven by his girlfriend. The previous time he had ridden in a car, it had been one wild ride which made him feel that the car was going to crash and engulf him in a fiery inferno at any second. It had made him detest the very idea of getting in any vehicle. Misato was as incompetent a driver as she was a parent and major.

He had forgotten the sweet sensation of being driven around by a sober and attentive driver who actually gave a damn about the dangers of substance abuse and drunk driving.  
And as the sweet ride Mari aptly titled "the Swagmobile" continued to speed forward, Shinji begun to laugh out loud feeling like a kid again despite the urgency of their mission of finding Rei before she got into any more trouble.

Even if Rei had her faults, she was still his friend and his first friend before Mari returned to him. Part of him still felt that by becoming so close to Mari, even if he had technically known her first, he was betraying Rei. It was a feeling of regret that he no longer felt for Asuka, now fully aware that there existed a better kind of relationship in the world which did not involve being shouted at and smacked in the face every few seconds over every little thing that he had zero control over.

He hoped that when he told Rei about his new girlfriend, it would not pierce her heart completely nor would she fly into a jealous rage to become the next Asuka.

"You've made a lot of difficult choices in your life Shinji. I'm proud of you." Praised Mari as they stopped at a red light. "You've been a brave hero, and I respect that from you even if no one else does."

"But soon Shinji. You'll have to be brave one more time. Because soon. You'll have to make the most difficult choice of them all." She warned, her voice taking a queer tone that Shinji couldn't decide was meant to be ominous or amused. It was if she was trying to be serious and at the same time, trying to be funny.

"And what choice is that?" he gulped, suddenly feeling more fear in that one moment than he had felt in all his hellish years spent in NERV, narrowly evading the jaws of death more times than he could count. All his nightmares compacted together wouldn't have hit him with a fraction as much of the fright that Mari's veiled threat was now causing him.  
He wasn't in his EVA and he was wishing he was.

"The choice that has been made all the harder because of all the good you've done for the world. The choice that you can only make once."

Mari took a small breath. She wanted to save this for later, but with the world in such danger, every day she delayed without speaking was another day in which Shinji would go to his grave with his choice never made.

"The choice of a significant other. A soulmate who you love as more than just a friend. The choice that will complete you as the great person you are meant to be. And the reason it will be so difficult for you Shinji, more than it will be for anyone else making this choice, is because of just how many people's lives you've improved with your noble sacrifices. You have basically the entire world to choose from, but you can only choose once. And as harsh as it sounds. You will have to live with your choice for the rest of your existence both in this life and the next (if there is one)."

She expected Shinji to squeal in pain or Anguish. She had after all placed upon him one of the most difficult choice any man, woman or child could be called to make, Angel apocalypse, totalitarian world or no.

"You can choose not to choose, but that's another choice which you might or might not like." Mari added trying to seem less frightening.

But though a slight paleness appeared on his face, his voice was clear and unbroken when he next spoke.

"I see. But I think I've already decided. There is no need any more for me to keep running away from what I truly want. I already know who I want, and nothing can change my mind."  
He turned his brown eyes to look into her teal ones as he finished this declaration.

Mari's heart was thudding thunderously as Shinji quietly but confidently continued.  
"Time and time again, I've tried to begin a relationship in earnest with the few people I could call my almost friends. Not one of them came close to success. I used to think that it really was because, as Asuka and Misato put it, I was a stupid cowardly brat who would never measure up to anything."

He smiled wistfully. "Now I know the real reason. It was because I had made my choice a long time ago. It was because I had complete faith in my past choice, that I was unable to start a new relationship with anyone. After all, I'm not the unfaithful cheater that my dad is. I would never go back on my word once I declared myself engaged to my significant other."

He shook his head, still smiling.

"I've been searching for a certain someone. Someone who meant everything to me but who I had forgotten the name of in the years me and her spent apart (kind of like that film "Your name"). That person thinks they need to apologize when it should be me who's sorry for not recalling them sooner."

His eyes began to moisten, but his smile never wavered.

"You've grown to be so smart and beautiful, Mari. Just like my mother knew you would."

Mari choked back a sob herself. "And you've grown to be so kind, strong and selfless. Just like I knew you would."

The two EVA pilots stared at each other in shared admiration for an endless time as an endless sea of cars and trucks continued to block the road in front of them.

"I know" Shinji announced, his voice serious once again as he briefly turned away. "That the choice I am about to make will make me a forever enemy of the people who once knew me. And that from this day onwards, I will have maybe a million killers outside my door trying to slit my throat. I understand that this is a sacrifice that must be undertaken. But for once in my life, I have decided, and nothing can change that decision. I might die tomorrow but I will not go to my grave an unwed man. Besides, it doesn't suit the son of the chief of NERV to be single."

Shinji's short and poignant speech which would soon be put into every existing history book finally finished, he turned back to his girlfriend and in the most courageous voice he had ever used in his lifetime, asked the brief but heavy question that once asked could never be taken back.

"Mari. Will you accept me to be your significant other?"

Though she had a feeling all along that this talk was coming from the moment she and Shinji reunited, Mari could not help but tremble a little in her driver's seat as even more traffic continued to clog up the road before them and the traffic light stayed resolutely in the red section.

"Sh, Shinji" she briefly muttered, amazed at how bravely he was managing the ordeal that brought most battle-hardened combat veterans to their knees. He really was the perfect saviour that the world needed the most.

"Will you take me now, for better or for worse. And promise to love me in both sickness and in health as I vow the same for you?" Shinji was never an expert on the bible, but he had heard that one-line countless times in the films his tiny amount of free time allowed him to see.

It usually came only in the final episodes when he and probably every other follower of the series had long since quit the series on account of how late the obvious declaration between two obvious lovers came. This would not be another one of those bad series. He was declaring his relationship with his lover honestly in episode 1 and leaving nothing to chance.

And if he got nothing but rejection or heartbreak, at least he would have the rest of his life to brood over his failure. Not that he hadn't been rejected before, but this one would sting the hardest out of any he had been through.

Of course, Mari didn't answer right away. This was a serious moment that always deserved its due respect. She sat there in tense silence uncharacteristic of a normally excitable and feisty jester for a few seconds which seemed to crawl by like years.

"Not to scare you or anything Shinji. But you do know that if you choose me, you will gain the everlasting hatred of just about everyone you care about. Just about everyone who you're close to at this moment, is going to have their heart shattered to pieces. That includes Asuka, Rei and yes even Misato and Dr Akagi. I mean, I love you as much as you love me and I am very grateful to be chosen, but are you really sure this is what you want?"

"I'm sure" affirmed Shinji, his voice burning with a passion which would have intimidated Asuka. "I've spent my life being as generous as I could to everyone. And just this once, it's time for me to be a little selfish. As I stated before, I made my choice a long time ago. And I knew when I made my choice, what the consequences would be. So, let them hate me. They'll hate me anyway. They hated me when I was a coward, and they'll hate me even if I became the bravest person alive. It doesn't change my love for you Mari. Nothing can change my love for you, and you should know that by now."

"Spoken just like a true hero." Mari proudly said to herself. "Oh Yui, if you only lived to see your son right now."

"Everyone and anyone could make me feel hated. But only you could make me feel loved. Everyone gave me the urge to die and end it all. You gave me the will to live. You've given me so much Mari, and now, this selfish and stupid brat asks for just one more thing. I ask you to come with me, till death do us part. And I mean it."

"And I accept" replied Mari, this time with no pause. "You gave me someone to care about after everyone I held dear was killed by NERV. You gave me a purpose in life after I had lost everything. Whenever, wherever. We're meant to be together."

And after Mari said those words, she unbuckled her seatbelt after taking a quick glance at the still red traffic light (safety first) and planted her lips upon a completely surprised Shinji who very nearly reeled away but forced himself to stay strong and accept his girlfriend now wife's token of affection.

Electricity seemed to pulse through his body as the kiss continued. It felt a billion times better than he imagined his first kiss would be in his dreams. Only this wasn't a dream. He had pinched himself very hard to make certain of that.

He begun to run short of air and his brain begun to swim giddily with nausea, but he resolved himself not to pull away just yet as he pushed his lips into Mari's harder.  
If he were to die right now in some sort of Angel attack, he would be perfectly okay with it.  
His one purpose in his miserable existence of finding just one kindred spirit who returned his feelings of affection had been fulfilled and the burden chaining his soul to eternal torment was finally gone.

Now he could live and die knowing that his efforts to bring joy to a joyless world, were not completely wasted. He had finally found his way out of the boulevard of broken dreams. No longer would he have to check his vital signs to know that he was alive and that he walked alone.  
He was certain that in this blissful moment, he was alive through the sheer euphoria of sweet victory.  
And he was certainly not alone any longer.

He had not been forced to settle for mediocrity nor consolation prize. Mari was everything a battle scarred and angsty boy could want in a girl, not without her imperfections but all the better for them.

His mum once said to him before she passed away that you were no one until you were somebody to someone. Well now he was somebody. Somebody valuable and worthwhile who was certainly not an idiot or a brat.

The sweet kiss continued for a few more moments until the traffic which moments ago Shinji wished would dissipate as soon as possible but now wished to continue forever, seemed to clear instantaneously causing the traffic light to instantly shine green. Usually the colour of serenity and safety in stark contrast to its more foreboding and dangerous cousin red, but today the colour that Shinji absolutely abhorred as Mari was forced to pull away, pull on her seatbelt and continue driving forward as the car behind beeped twice angrily in quick succession.

There had been no rings, no dresses and tuxedo and no ceremony but Shinji didn't care. As he had learned over his years of seeing his father mishandle relationship after relationship, a wedding really was sometimes just a formality and a piece of paper that meant absolutely nothing.

As far as he was concerned, the girl sitting beside him driving him onward was his wife now.  
As Marie Simon Bishop had died to make way for Mari Makinami Illustrious, so did Mari Makinami give her life to give rise to Mari Ikari.

The smile he could see on his girlfriend from a window reflection told him that she was just as elated by the upgrade in their relationship as he was.

His huge grin twitched very slightly as he settled back into his seat and had a flash of all the lives both innocent and guilty that he had completely ruined with his decision.

"Let them rage." He apologetically but calmly whispered to himself as the car continued onward.  
" This is my reward and I earned it fair and square."

_Short chapter. Thanks everyone for reviewing and please keep them coming if you can. Thanks for reading and I will see you back next time hopefully. Bye for now and thanks. Notice me Senpai. _


	19. What about Kaji and Kaworu?

**Chapter 19: What about Kaji and Kaworu?**

The dark haired NERV officer known as Kaji begun to tearfully tremble as he left his tv on, still playing one advert after another now that the daily news was over. He bit his lip so hard that blood begun to trickle down his neck.

"I'm sorry Misato." He regretfully wailed in his deep sorrow. "Sorry, that I ever met you. You really are no different from Gendo and the others. You really are just another self-righteous pretender. Call yourself a Major and you can't even knock some discipline into that red-haired bully."

He lost all sense of control as his gaze drifted to a photo of him and Misato together on one of their dates. The dark-haired man and purple haired woman looked so content and cheerful standing in front of that charming little restaurant. Their smiles only added the final spark to ignite his fire of rage.

"AAAAAH!" he roared, nearly breaking his vocal cords as he took the glass picture case with the photo and pushed it to the floor where it shattered into pieces with a loud crash.

"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! III HHHAAATTTEEE YYYOOOUUU" he bellowed as he begun to kick and punch at the paper-thin walls of his apartment with all his might. His hands and feet were horribly bruised, but he continued to beat at the already badly worn walls till he had created a massive hole exposing the angry man to his next-door neighbour (a short and skinny old man with white hair) who quickly backed away with their hands in the air upon seeing him in his state.

He continued to scream at the top of his lungs as he turned a knackered fist at himself and begun to punch his own head. He was just as responsible for that poor boy's misery as the purple haired child abuser, he now had nothing but contempt toward.

The world begun to blur around him. He heard ringing noises. But he continued to beat himself down with every last ounce of his strength. This was his punishment. He deserved this. He had been so busy trying to figure out the secrets behind NERV that he had been blind to the blindingly obvious faults of the woman he had given himself to completely and to the plight of the boy he had always considered as his own son.

How dare he have the gall to say that after he had all but left Shinji to die at the hands of those two assholes who were not worth the space they took up on earth.

"it's all my fault, it's all my fault, IT'S ALL MY FAULT!"

"The engagement's off, missy." He murmured furiously as he fell to the floor worn out, unable to punch himself anymore as his neighbour hurried to their house phone to dial emergency services. "And German girl, whatever your name is. You need to be disciplined."

He laughed weakly and maniacally as darkness washed over him. "Discipline. Discipline. Discipline."

Emergency services would find him lying in a contorted mess on the floor with an almost completely black forehead and severe internal bleeding in his cranial region, which would require several neurological operations to even begin to attempt to repair.

His prognosis would state that his chances of ever regaining consciousness ranked just one step above the average lottery player winning the lottery. In other words, it would take nothing short of a divine miracle for that man to ever open his eyes again.  
The best-case scenario if all went well, a three-year coma.

Misato had unknowingly driven her betrothed to near suicide.

…

In a dimly lit hospital room, somewhere deep below in the lower floors of NERV, a grey-haired boy who had recently awoken from his own comatose state which had lasted several years and spent his first awakened minutes catching up on the news with the battered telly fortunate enough to be placed beside his bed, in the hopes of gaining some insight to see how the world had changed during his reticence, barred his teeth in great ferocity.

It replaced his usual casual smile which usually did not fade even in the heat of the wildest fights he had been forced to partake in as another EVA pilot.  
He had never been afraid of the fiercest Angels. He had never felt any sort of animosity towards NERV for their poor treatment of both himself and the world they claimed to protect.

That red-haired girl named Asuka however, was a different beast altogether. How any pilot could be so cold-hearted to the plight that their fellow pilots were forced to suffer each day in the never-ending battle for mankind's survival, having been through the same themselves, made even him both afraid and disgusted.

Such insensate and tasteless cruelty, from one of his fellow pilots towards one of his fellow pilots.  
He couldn't and wouldn't stand for it.  
Mankind's very future rested on his and his team of pilot's ability to act and fight as one in top physical conditions. And that Asuka was putting every single innocent in the world at risk with her appalling treatment of that Shinji.  
Survival of mankind was his mission. His mission was all. And if this meant thinning out his ranks to leave only his helpful teammates who took being a pilot seriously, then so be it.

"Someone like you, Asuka, is not allowed to harm my friends" the grey-haired boy said in fluent Japanese with a slightly Russian accent, as he stretched himself slightly to shake away the last lingering traces of drowsiness. "I Kaworu Nagisa Mikhail, will put an end to your schemes. You're an insult to everything we pilots stand for, and I cannot allow that."

He got up from the bed. "Do not worry Shinji. We will get along just fine. Your senior pilot Kaworu will see that nothing bad happens to you."

The mind took longer than the body to recover from the effects of coma but now more memories were coming back to the boy as he found his clothes which had been conveniently placed in a neat stack on a chair in the room, untouched since the day his coma begun.

Memories of his easier days in the orphanage where he thought life would be simple and straightforward and when he believed that good things such as friendship were forever, and he took them for granted.

His mind settled upon a blurry but still very meaningful image of a twin tailed brown-haired British girl with red glasses, among the crowd of other orphaned kids.  
A series of other blurred pictures followed. He remembered the small but comfortable room he had back in the orphanage, and how the same girl occupied the bunk directly above his own.

It was winter, and they sat together in the warm cafeteria huddled beside each other, downing hot chocolate. Now he was stuck on a very difficult maths question which he could not do no matter how much he pondered. She was there to show him every step to the solution and repeat the demonstration again and again when he still struggled. He had described her as "quite the scholar", which made her blush so cutely. It was the first week he wasn't given a detention slip or a demerit (the orphanage staff were very kind but also very strict about a good education).

They exchanged literature in their spare time not spent playing or working on their work. Studying Shakespeare was by far his favourite pastime with her. Especially the play "Romeo and Juliet" in which there were a million things that could have been done right to avert a tragedy but were not done thanks to an infuriating mixture of rashness and thoughtless hatred.

In return he showed her "War and peace". A novella that NERV had nearly burned every single copy off.

But her name. What was her name?

_"Think of the first female scientist to win two Nobel Prizes and work with radioactive materials."_

Your name. I know I know it but what.

_"Her name was Marie. Think of her name and you won't be far from my name. Think of Marie, but more Japanese sounding."  
_  
Come on. I need to remember your name. I just have to. REMEMBER ALREADY.

_"That Anime film we watched together so many times. There weren't too many DVD's we had to choose from, but we always loved that one. You know the one. How could you forget it? The one about the lonely boy and girl finally finding company in each other after being all alone for too long." _

I KNOW IT. I JUST CAN'T QUITE PUT MY FINGER ON IT. COME ON KAWORU. STOP BEING SO THICK AND JUST THINK FOR A GOSH DARN SECOND.

_"It's the same name you gave to me when you decided we would be best friends forever. You called me what our favourite film was called. You called me, my beautiful girl…"  
_  
"MARI!" Kaworu cried, a mixture of joy and anguish half and half mingled in his voice.  
"I'm sorry. I hope you won't mind that it took me so long. Please still be there. Please be alright. I'm alive. I'm well. I just need to find you then everything will be fine. Please don't be dead already"

Kaworu had already been very alarmed upon seeing the date on the news channel presented by reporter and pilot Rei Ayanami, that a good four years and a bit had passed from his approximate date that he was laid low by a rampaging behemoth of an Angel even he couldn't defeat.  
He had had an inkling that something was not right in NERV from that day, having armed with such inferior armament to face such a mighty foe when better technology was quite apparently available as an upgrade from the very outdated EVA's they had been using, and from the looks of it were still using.

Surely such an advanced mega research corporation had something better by now?

The last time he had seen her, she was crying and begging for him not to go to NERV and stay with her safe in the sheltered little life they had built for themselves. He had steeled himself and left the orphanage anyway in spite of her tears, stating that if he did not go, another one of the kids, perhaps her would be chosen at random, by force if necessary. NERV was short on pilots then and knowing what he knew about what piloting entailed, he couldn't take the risk that they take any child but him away.

Some children didn't even survive the synchronization test between them and their EVA, and died on day one of their recruitment stage.

As well as some mumbo jumbo, that this was his destiny that he could not escape from.

He slapped his own mouth over the last thing he said.

As he threw open the rusted door of his isolation room and raced across the dark underground corridor, he rechecked the two lists he had made since the start of his career in NERV.

People to save: The world, Mari

Targets to eliminate: SEELE, NERV, Angels, Adam, Lilith.

He added three names, two for the first list and one for the second one.

People to save: The world, Mari, Shinji, and in small letters: Rei

Targets to eliminate: SEELE, NERV, Angels, Adam, Lilith, and then in bold: ASUKA!

"Don't panic Shinji and Mari." He exclaimed as he dashed up the stairs with awe inspiring speed completely unnatural for a recent coma recoveree who'd just woken up.  
"I'm coming to save you both. And you too Rei, provided you're on our side, which for now I'll assume you are."

_Props once again to all my reviewers for reviewing and please know that I appreciate every one of your kind inputs. See I think that Kaworu was put in the third film as a way to pander to the audience. He stole valuable screen time that could have been used to develop our main characters better. He was a good guy but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
Mari or even Asuka could have accomplished what Kaworu did, pulling Shinji aside to tell him the truth about what really happened and then begging for his help to stage a coup against WILLE.  
_

_In the case of Asuka, this would have made so much better of a character. She could have even had a heart to heart moment where she apologises sincerely for all the bad things she did to him over the years. How much better would that have been?_

_In the case of Mari and Kaworu. Both are minor characters with a major impact who realise something's up before anyone else. They're also the two characters in the third movie not to torment Shinji._

_And since Mari represents England, why not have Kaworu represent another non-Japanese minority? His accent in the film did seem a little Russian.  
_

_As for Kaji, He's a good man. Kind of ironic that he can see the faults in NERV but not the more obvious faults in Misato for mistreating Shinji. No?_


	20. Maya Chan, Senpai notices you

**Chapter 20: Maya-chan. You have been noticed by Senpai.**

Maya Ibuki was trying very hard not to faint. On her way back to her apartment from the bus stop (she had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus to NERV and not be tardy because of her low budget) she had seen the first child, Rei on a television screen in a shop window.

The glass obstructed her view slightly, but she could still hear and see perfectly well what Rei had been saying. It had confirmed her worst fears that Shinji had indeed been a victim of horrific abuse all these years.

This alone would have upset an already upset shell-shocked veteran but the sight across the street of Kaji being lifted out of his apartment on a stretcher and thrown straight into a waiting ambulance, nearly broke her.

She knew from their few interactions during the years that Kaji was a man of great character in spite of his eccentricities. And if the evening news had been enough to make her hit her own forehead a few times over her own involvement, small as it was over worsening Shinji's plight, then it must have elicited the same reaction from sweet and wonderful Kaji in the same way but in a far more serious manner.

Oh Kaji. You didn't need to do all this to prove you cared as well.

The reaction on her face as the ambulance drove quickly away would have given Lovecraft's outer gods a run for their money. She did not scream. She did not cry. She was in a catatonic state of shock as she put her hands to her face.

It was only her concern for Shinji that snapped her out of her trance to prevent her being wheeled away in the same ambulance.  
She was on her own now that Kaji was gone and Yui was dead.

But she couldn't do this on her own. Maya's one rank below Misato meant that their training had been completely different, both in the way they battled and the way they led their lives.  
Misato was trained to shout the orders. Maya to obey them.  
Misato to come up with the (usually unsuccessful) battle plans. Maya to follow them to the letter.

She needed help and fast. But who could help her now? She had been fired, no she had quit NERV and for obvious reasons, Misato couldn't be trusted.

She briefly opened her mouth to scream but relented as the clouds of the night sky seemed to come together like magic to conjure up the image of a grinning young woman with short but very pretty hair and a lab coat in the same style as the one worn by Yui and then Naoko.

The image of a Senpai. Her Senpai. Who just like Shinji, managed to keep well clear of the mistakes made by her own abusive parent, who even in death was continuing to aid Gendo in his blatantly evil plans.

It didn't take long to reach Ritsuko's apartment. Unlike Misato, Maya's alcohol clear body and relative youth made her the very image of health in spite of her below average weight and her sprint fuelled by panic induced adrenaline was very swift.  
A quick press on Ritsuko's apartment number buzzer and a desperate shriek of "help me Senpai. Please open up." and the door was quickly opened with no need for even a reply.

Maya reached Ritsuko's floor to find the door already opened and an incredibly anxious Ritsuko standing in the doorway quickly beckoning the barely conscious former officer inside.

"Shh. It's okay. It's okay" Ritsuko soothed in a unsarcastically coaxing voice not typical for a purveyor of science and objectivism as she welcomed the now sobbing Maya into her open arms, holding her and gently patting her back as her uncaring mother Naoko had never done for her even in their better days.

"I'm not like you mother. I'm nothing like you" Ritsuko whispered disapprovingly under her breath as she rocked the brown-haired woman in her arms back and forth as she uncontrollably cried the words "Senpai. Senpai" repeatedly. It was as if Maya could melt into a puddle of jelly at any moment with how broken she was acting.

"There, there. Senpai is here for you. Don't cry anymore Maya. You are safe." The scientist managed to gather up the courage to say as Maya's tantrum was beginning to die down just a little.

"Senpai has noticed you." She added when Maya still did not stop crying completely. "And Senpai loves you as well. It's okay. I'm here for you Maya."

It was this final soothing line which made Maya finally stop crying long enough to dab at her face with her hand and take a few deep breaths, as Ritsuko patiently instructed her to breath in and out till the last of her tantrum finally died away.

"Feeling better?" the chief scientist asked.

"mm. Mhmm"

"Good. I take it you saw the news too."

"Y, yes. And, and…"

"And what?"

"K,K" The name of a wonderful man who was essentially the opposite to chief Gendo snagged on Maya's tongue several times before she eventually managed to get it out.

"Kaji. He's been taken away."

"WHAT?" asked Ritsuko, uncontrollably raising her voice.

"Kaji. He took it too hard. He took it all out on himself and now he's in hospital. I heard the paramedics say that his prognosis is less than ten percent and that he might never wake up again."

"That bastard" Ritsuko yelled causing Maya to reel back in great fear. Kaji's reaction may not have been ideal but it was certainly justified. Surely Ritsuko knew that.

"Not Kaji, Maya" Ritsuko assured. "Misato. She did this. If she had just done the gosh darn responsible thing and punished Asuka for her bad behaviour, this wouldn't have happened. And she calls herself a major. Hah. Major my ass."

"We did this too." Maya piped, relieved that Ritsuko was being far more reasonable in the blame game. "We should have seen the signs. We should have asked Shinji what was wrong and if he had a problem or not. We're just as much to blame as well, she is…"

"If only stupid Gendo had given me custody of Shinji instead of that drunk…"

"It's too late for that now, Ritsu Senpai. We need to do something. It's no use playing this useless blame game. That's what got us into this mess in the first place. We need a plan. And I know you have a plan, Ritsuko. You always have a plan. You're the woman with a plan."

"But what can we do?" Sighed Ritsuko angrily. "Gendo clearly doesn't give a damn about his son and he clearly doesn't care what we think either. So what really can we even do? You got any ideas? The police certainly don't care either."

"There has to be something" Maya thoughtfully replied, pressing a finger to her noggin hard. There was a first time for everything and right now, it was her first time devising a fool proof battle strategy. Without her senior officers to boss her around and with even Senpai, the woman with a plan flummoxed by this entire ordeal, the planning fell to the Junior officers, the most senior of them in this moment being her, the first lieutenant even if she had parted ways with NERV.

It was time to take the lead.

"If we can't get Shinji away from Misato, maybe we can just deal with Misato in some way." Maya mused, inciting a look of utter jubilation upon her Senpai which Maya mistook as confusion.

And then she got an idea. An awful idea. Ritsu-senpai got a wonderful, awful idea.

"I was just making a suggestion" Maya started only to be cut off quickly by a now very proud Ritsuko Akagi.

"That's it." She barked in reply.

"That's what?"

"That's how we're going to do it, Maya. You're a genius. We'll make it so that Gendo can't send Shinji back to Misato. We'll make it so that he has no choice but to send Shinji somewhere else, at least for the time being."

"And how do we do that, Ritsu-Senpai. It's not as if we can just go to the police spouting about how we apparently believe bad things about two of the most respected members of NERV."

"Not the police Maya. Screw the police. We don't need the police. We'll do this ourselves."

"You mean. Vigilante Justice?"

"It worked pretty well in the movies didn't it?" commented Ritsuko. "No superhero ever needed a police force to stop the bad guy, did they?"

"No… But what does this have to do with anything?"

"It means that this is what we're going to do now." Ritsuko replied. "We go to Misato and Shinji's apartment, and we do what's right. We capture Misato and Asuka too if she's there and we keep them held up so that Gendo will have no choice but to send Shinji to live somewhere else since he obviously doesn't want Shinji around him."

"And how do we do that?" asked Maya, more curious than afraid despite the terrible way she begun to see this plan going.

"Well that. It's a good thing I'm the chief Scientist. We use one of my toys." Explained Ritsuko reaching into one of her cupboards as she spoke.  
Why wasn't Maya surprised when her senpai turned around to reveal it was a tranquilizer gun, armed and loaded with a syringe full of blue tranquilizer liquid?

"And don't ask me where I got it from or why I have it."

"I won't Senpai. But what's the plan?"

"Simply put. We'll go over to Shinji's apartment right now. I know where it is because Misato told me. Then when we get there, I'll knock on the door and try to get Misato and Asuka's attention. You hold the tranquilizer, and when you see an opening, shoot. You did tell me you had basic training as an officer so surely you can do that?"

"Well about that Senpai. I lied. I wasn't just given basic training. I was given advanced training as well when I was promoted. The only reason I don't shoot well is because sometimes I get scared and because I don't like shooting at other humans. It's cruel and as corny as it sounds, I don't like doing cruel things."

"Perfectly understandable reaction Maya. It's one of the reasons I'm glad I met you."

"But I think I should be up for this one. Asuka and Misato have done so much harm to Shinji with so little care. To me, they're not human anymore."

"And we're not going to do anything overly cruel to them Maya. We're not like them. We'll just keep them here. This room has soundproof walls, and (with the exception of you, my one good friend) no one comes here. We're just doing this to help Shinji."

Maya smiled. "A very simple plan, Senpai."

Ritsuko returned her smile. "The best ones often are. Let's go. And if anyone asks why we're dragging an unconscious woman and a pilot, we'll just say that Misato drunk again and that Asuka's injured herself and urgently needs medical assistance (NERV pilots did get private treatment in a NERV clinic, despite NERV's cruelty since they were difficult to replace)"

"Got it. Let's go." Maya said with more eagerness than she intended as she picked up the tranquilizer and the set of loaded syringes Ritsuko passed to her.  
If she couldn't use her advanced combat skills as a lieutenant in NERV, she would use them as a trained assassin who had gone rogue.

As the two women headed out of the apartment and into Ritsuko's cheap white car, both of them cracked a different expression each, that would have made any onlooker quiver in cold fright.  
Maya wore a slasher smile, the one used by serial killers as their hapless cornered victim turned to realize too late that they were doomed.  
Ritsuko, a maniacal grin that would have made the demented minds at SEELE seem halfway presentable.

…

Rei breathed heavily as she stopped briefly to catch her breath. Artificial humans had better stamina than normal ones but still needed to rest every now and again. She peered back around the corner to see that she had still not lost her pursuers who fortunately were not armed with firearms out of fear of hurting the commander's favourite doll.

Just as she begun to think all hope was lost, a blue SUV pulled up around the corner.

She had barely time to register her surprise at seeing that the passenger and driver were the two people in the world she had any sympathy for at this point, before a relieved but very panicked Shinji shouted "Get on Rei. Get on. They're gaining on us."

She had not even had the time to close the back door she had entered the car through before a hysterical Shinji yelled "Step on it, Mari. Get us out of here."

The car sped away at a breakneck speed as Rei finally managed to close the door and put her hands over her mouth. Her stomach was still queasy from her earlier sighting of the trash dump that Shinji had been forced to live in for so many years.

"Thank you for saving me, Shinji-kun and Nami brown." Rei managed to say when she had stabilized herself a little and managed to get her seatbelt on as well.  
"I'm very grateful."

"Anytime, Nami blue." Mari replied back as she slowed down to a more reasonable speed now that the security guards chasing Rei were far behind them.  
"You were so brave up there. I'm very proud of you for what you've done."

"The world needed to know the truth behind how badly Shinji was being treated" Rei bluntly stated.  
"And now that they do, hopefully things will be better for him."

"Oh Rei" Shinji remarked quietly but gratefully. "You didn't have to do all that for me. Now NERV will be after you."

"And that's why she's not going back tonight." Mari pitched in. "We'll take her back to my house where she can stay with us until we figure out what to do next."

The others grunted in reply as the rest of the ride continued in silence for a while.

It was the usually quiet and introverted Rei who broke the silence.

"Shinji. There's something I need to tell you."

"What is it Rei?"

"I'm really sorry. Really sorry for everything I've done to you."

"What do you mean Rei. You were the first person to ever show me any sort of kindness? You don't need to be sorry for that."

"No. Shinji. You don't understand. I was originally built by your father to be a honey trap. To keep you obedient to him and NERV so that you would continue piloting against your will. He was trying to use me against you Shinji. To pretend that I cared a bit about you, but always keep myself distant so that you would keep trying to get closer to me to no avail. This is the truth Shinji, and I can't not confess this to you. You have a right to not forgive me Shinji. But for what it's worth, I'm sincerely regretful over my part in this entire scheme. I'm sorry."

Rei could not bring herself to move a muscle as she awaited her Shinji-kun's judgement with bated breath. She wondered if this was where Mari stopped the car and tossed her out onto the street where she would soon be hit by another passing car.

It would be fitting punishment for all the atrocities she had unknowingly committed during the years to both Shinji, Mari and everyone else in the world.

_Props to all my reviewers for reviewing. This chapter was inspired by the End of Evangelion where Maya and (fake) Ritsuko share one last embrace where she yells "Senpai, Senpai" before Maya explodes and SEELE takes over the world.  
At least that girl died with her humanity intact and happy unlike the other meaner NERV members.  
I respect her decision not to open fire even as her life was in danger. She wanted to out with her dignity unlike Gendo. I like to think she was one of the first to come back from the human instrumentality program._


	21. Judgement night for Misato and Asuka

**Chapter 21: Judgement night: Defendants Rei, Misato and Asuka. **

Shinji didn't speak. Neither did Mari. They sat with their backs still turned to Rei as the car continued. They understood their artificial-human friend too well and knew she still had more to say.  
And a good judge never passed judgement before reviewing all the evidence. Nor did a good friend rudely interrupt another in the middle of what was clearly a very important matter.

"You told me sometime ago Shinji, that something in the way I looked reminded you of your mum, but you couldn't quite put your finger on what it was. You very nearly ran away from me, that time."

"Yes. I did say that" Shinji confirmed, his face riddled with angst that Rei fortunately did not see.

"That's because I was created to be a clone of her. Your dad created me to have the same genes as Yui Ikari, both so that it would be easy for me to trick you into staying loyal to him, and in preparation for when he would eventually use me to resurrect her when the time came."

"You're joking, Rei. Please, tell me you're joking." Shinji pleaded, turning to face the bluenette with a look that seemed as if he'd just seen a ghost.

"For once in my life, Shinji. I wish I could say I was joking, but I'm not. I can't play this game with you anymore. You and Mari deserve the truth, or what I know of it at least. And this is the truth. When the time comes, I will cease to exist to make way for the return of Yui Ikari. My soul will leave my body and I will effectively be dead, along with much of the world which will also have to be destroyed to make real the dream of my creator."

"Well that's not going to happen, Rei." Shinji barked, unable to take the low self-worth Rei still had even after she had done the most courageous act of heroism he had ever seen anyone perform, outing Asuka and Misato for what they really were in spite of her creator's evil intentions for her.  
"We will protect you from him and give him what he deserves. You don't need to be sorry for anything, Rei. You didn't ask for this and you were always kind to me. I believe that even if everything you told me is the truth, your concern for my wellbeing was real. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be showing the regret you are clearly showing now."

"Do you, really mean that Shinji-kun? Do you really, forgive me?" Rei's eyes seemed to swell to cover her entire face.

"I was never angry at you in the first place, Rei. You were always a good person and I will always want to help you."

"As will I" added Mari, causing Rei's anxious frown to quickly become a disbelieving gasp. "I know you always had it hard in your life, but you never let it get to you. You've done so well to get this far and all I can really say is, keep going."

Rei nodded as she sat without speaking for the rest of her ride.  
This was the best day of her life.

The boy she cared about, returned her feelings for him. He did not condescend her simply because she was the commander's "favourite" and saw the burden her position brought to her.  
Him, her and Mari could continue their friendship in spite of her past mistakes, and that was worth more to her than anything.

Or as Rei's books would have put it, Madoka and her friends had finally acknowledged the good in Homura in spite of her faults and were more than willing to try a new friendly start with the misunderstood leper.  
And when that happened, life couldn't be better.

Nagato had beaten some sense into Haruhi, and now Homaru was being accepted as an official magical girl, all past transgressions forgiven. All in one night. And yet her creator said miracles didn't exist.

"I used to be so blinded by my past (false) ideals that I lost sight of what really mattered" Rei monologued as the car finally stopped in the gateway to a large and beautiful courtyard.  
"Now that I am more reasonable, it will make me stronger."

When Homura and Madoka joined their forces, nothing could stop them. The incubators, err, Angels would wish they had never come.

…

Ritsuko and Maya parked their car on an empty spot beside the pavement where Major Misato shared her apartment with Shinji and Asuka. Maya kept the tranquilizer hidden in a trouser pocket while Ritsuko took out a hairpin and begun to expertly pick the lock.

"Wow, I didn't know you could do that, Senpai" Maya exclaimed in amazement.

"What kind of chief scientist would I be if I couldn't? The high intelligence character always gets the lockpicking skills in a game. And if this amazes you, Maya, then wait till next time when I hack a computer."

The door soon opened without a sound as the two women stole quietly across the complex, taking care not to make too much noise, taking the elevator to save time.

"Remember what Senpai told you." Ritsuko instructed as the lift reached floor 6 to which Maya giddily responded with a goofy salute and a "Hai!".  
Her first mission which she would not majorly screw up.

Ritsuko took point and after checking once more to make sure the corridor was empty and no noise was coming from any of the apartment doors, gestured to Maya to take cover behind a corner slightly further down the corridor.

She waited a few seconds for Maya to get into position before stepping closer to room 613 and gently knocking a few times.

"A girl opens her door and get's shot and you think that of me Misato? No, I am the one who knocks" she joked as she heard a loud yawn followed by several hiccups and some footsteps.  
"Major Misato, come quickly, something terrible has happened. It's an emergency" Ritsuko called at the door in a quite loud but not overly so voice. She wanted to rouse the occupants of that one apartment room, but no one else.

It took three tedious minutes before the door was eventually opened and an incredibly fatigued Misato clad in a messy red bathrobe stumbled into the doorway.

"H, hey there rits." She blubbered in a still hiccup filled voice. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes, Misato. Something is very wrong, and you need to come with me right now." Ritsuko seriously replied somewhat disappointed and yet somewhat relieved that Asuka wasn't here as well since at least it halved the number of targets they had to deal with. Now she needed to get Misato to take one step out the room. As skilled a sniper as she was, Maya couldn't get a clean shot from this angle.

"What's wrong Ritsu?" the drunk Major hiccupped as she shook a little from the alcohol still coursing through her body. It was clear that this woman should not have been leading anything, save for perhaps a drinking contest.

"It's something concerning you, Misato, and for this reason, you need to accompany me to NERV's headquarters right now." Ritsuko urgently said, hoping that Misato hadn't noticed she had entered the complex which required a door key, without one and take the bait.

"Erm. Well if it's important. I guess." Agreed Misato reluctantly. "Just let me get dressed first and…"

"No time" Ritsuko quickly interjected, cutting her off mid-sentence. "Something is very wrong, and we need to go right now."

"Well, alright." The major took one shaky step out her door to which Maya grinned like a serial killer as she drew her weapon and took aim.  
"What exactly is it concerning me anyway?" she asked as a tranquilizer dart soared gracefully through the air and buried itself almost perfectly in her shoulder.

"It concerns how you've been a terrible parent to Shinji all these years, and how he needs to be removed from your presence as soon as possible not just for his own good, but for all of our sakes."  
she heard the blonde scientist say through dazed eyes before she fell to the ground and passed out.

"She aims, she shoots, she scores" Maya quietly cheered as she admired the results of her first bullseye, to which an irritated Ritsuko quickly motioned for her to help drag Misato's now unconscious body into the car before anyone came out to investigate.

Maya obeyed and quickly helped Ritsuko pull the purple haired woman into the elevator, and out the door of the apartment fortunately without meeting anyone else. Fortunate that the citizens of the building was apathetic to the suffering of a high ranking officer as they were to the poor pilot who had weathered more abuse at the hands of her and his other redhead than most soldiers went through in a lifetime.

That boy really did face a thousand battles before he even went to war. That alone made him the greatest pilot and soldier not just in NERV, not just in the whole world but ever to exist in this or any world.

Misato's still comatose body was quickly put into the backseat of Ritsuko's car before her two kidnappers got inside and begun to drive back in the direction of Ritsuko's apartment.

"We didn't get Asuka." Maya said with some concern. "What if she decides to take her rage onto Shinji again?"

"Doesn't matter. Without an adult in this apartment, Gendo still has to send Shinji to live elsewhere since he's technically classed as a child. We can ignore Asuka as long as she no longer has any way of contacting Shinji."

"Good point." Maya concluded as Ritsuko's car pulled into its usual spot in the underground parking lot beside Ritsuko's complex.

"When we get back inside, you get some rope ready while I put up a few more soundproofing tiles." Ritsuko instructed as they once again worked together to bring the sleeping major through the building to the elevator. "Then we can go to sleep and rest up for tomorrow. "

"Sounds like a plan senpai." Maya yawned. She had experienced more action in one day than she had in one year in NERV, yet she had loved every second of it.

Misato would wake the next morning with her hands tied behind her back and her feet tied together with a material approximately three point nine-five times stronger than nylon.

She had entered into a place that those who entered it both loved and loathed. Where those who lost themselves within both wished to stay forever and at the same time would trade anything to escape.  
The place that warden Ritsuko Akagi would title, the paradise prison.

A place first devised by the great Homura Akemi to keep her united with her tragic friend Madoka who she could not otherwise ever be with, in eternal bliss, FOR ALL ETERNITY.

Naoko Akagi had held nothing but loathing for the artificial human Rei, because she stole valuable attention from the cruel chief Gendo, who she would have done anything to get with.  
And Ritsuko had foolishly held the same belief at first until she realized that a man who mistreated his heroic and helpful son who the world depended on, was not worth anyone's time.  
And that none of the faults in NERV were down to poor, misunderstood Rei, who in a sense was more human than all of NERV combined, second only to Shinji in kindness.

She had broken down one lonely evening before the blue haired girl, kneeling as she pathetically cried out her repentance of how petty the Akagi family's hatred for Rei had been. How she had very nearly become her mother in terms of pettiness and foolhardy discrimination.  
She pleaded Rei's forgiveness expecting but a silent glare typical of an emotionless being. She got a reassuring hug as the artificial human ran her fingers through the doctor's short blonde hair.

Rei said nothing but it was not necessary. From that day on, the chief scientist and the homunculi had grown closer and closer. Two replaceable cogs in the soulless machine that was NERV, which were irreplaceable to each other. They began to find more things they had in common, than either of them could imagine them having.

A shared passion for an identical series of underappreciated books was just one of them. Their mutual admiration for the incredibly well written character of the series in question "Homura Akemi", was another.

"I humbly welcome you to my paradise prison, Madoka" Ritsuko grandly announced as she and Maya finally got Misato up to her door, unable to resist to opportunity to make one quote from her and Rei's favourite character of their favourite series.  
"stay as long as you like, stay…forever" she finished the quote with a short, demented cackle, imitating Homura's voice perfectly. Her delivery would have single-handedly won any film an Oscar.

"That's my senpai" Maya proudly quipped as she closed the door behind them as they entered. "Isn't she cool."

…

Asuka sat on the stone steps of some unknown building somewhere in the city, clutching the bruised spot on her arm where Hikari's kitchen poker had harshly and forcefully whacked into it.  
For the second time in her life since the passing of her beloved mother who to had been driven to suicide by her mad father, her eyes began to resemble nearly bursting rain clouds.

"No." the usually tough and unrelenting bully insisted to herself "showing sadness is a weakness just like kindness. I can't cry. I just can't"

"I'll count to three. Stay after that, and I'll hit you the same way you've hit poor Shinji all these years." Hikari's furious voice rang out, clear as a bell through her mind. Though it was just her imagination, Asuka still covered her ears and desperately shook herself as she reflexively reeled back, expecting at any second to see a heavy and hard metallic poker materialize before her to smite her once more.

The emotional damage with which it struck, far outmatched the admittedly very severe physical pain now present in her writing limb. She would be unable to write or move that limb even slightly without unbearable spasms of pain for several days.  
It made even walking somewhat difficult.

"That idiot, stupid Shinji deserved it." Asuka tried to reason, as if Hikari were still close by. "He was getting on my nerves and he needed to know not to cross me. He's nothing but a wimpy wimp who'll never measure up to anything and who the world would be better off without."

More mental images flashed before Asuka's increasingly teary eyes. Past memories of all the lovely meals Shinji had gone out of his way to prepare for her, even when it was clear he should be in bed resting from all the stress and injuries he had incurred from both her, his father Gendo and the Angels.  
Not one meal tasted less than exceptional. Not one dish looked badly formed.

She had traversed the entirety of Tokyo-3 looking for a better culinary sensation, but none were any match for Shinji's cooking.  
"Even if the entire world turned against you Asuka, I will still care for you." She heard Shinji's voice saying to her one rainy night when Hikari and her had gotten into an argument of sorts and she was forced to rush back to their apartment soaking wet through the rainstorm.

Shinji had never raised his voice when talking to her. Not once. Not even when she had struck him hard with a kick to his face causing blood to gush from his broken nose.

"He deserved what I gave him" Asuka repeated, this time with great doubt in her tone. "But, then why am I all alone? I hate being all alone."  
The last sentence finally overcame the ban that checked her tears as a few salty droplets of water finally dripped onto her chest.

"I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be alone." Asuka repeated to herself as she tried and failed to stop this pathetic display of weakness. She couldn't show weakness in front of anyone. Weakness was not the mark of a winner and to Asuka, winning was the only thing.  
Those who lost got no reputation and no glory.

And Rei had just taken every bit of her reputation and shattered it to pieces before her very eyes. Why that little…

Another spasm of pain erupted from Asuka's right arm and she squealed in terrible agony. Hikari really knew how to hit when she wasn't happy, didn't she?

"Can I help you?" a soft and melodious voice offered, causing the red haired German to force back her tears and look up to see a helpfully smiling grey haired Russian boy clad in a matching grey shirt and cheap blue jeans and worn sport shoes ,which looked as if he had snooped them from the bargain section of the second hand store. "You seem very distressed and it's getting very late. Is something wrong?"

"And what's it to you, creep?" Asuka distrustfully barked, unable to prevent a light sob leaking from her mouth despite her best efforts. "Why don't you mind your own business and leave me in peace."

"The streets aren't safe at night, miss, and the earlier display of grief I witnessed from you tells me that for one reason or another, you are not alright. I'm only trying to help" the boy insisted, looking at her with unusually sympathetic eyes which seemed to pulse with the same warmth as…stupid Shinji's.

"I don't need help. I'm fine. Now why don't you go away before I get really cross." Asuka asserted, wiping away a stray tear from her cheek as she did.

"I cannot simply leave a fellow pilot in such clear distress and walk away like that. It wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't be doing my duty properly." The boy simply replied, patient as ever.

"You, a pilot?" Now Asuka was slightly curious in addition to being annoyed and impatient with the first human being to witness a display of human weakness from her.

"Allow me to make a formal introduction. My name is Kaworu Nagisa Mikhail, currently the fifth child of NERV. You may not have known about me beforehand as a few years prior, I suffered a severe head injury during a battle and have since then been stuck in a coma that I only recently awakened from. I am sure we'll be performing many missions together in the future."

Asuka opened her mouth to try once more to shoo this interloper away but his next question got in the way of that.

"Asuka… is that correct. Asuka Langley Soryu? You're the second child, aren't you?"

"H, how do you know who I am?" Asuka demanded, more afraid than angry. When she said she enjoyed fame and attention, she didn't mean for a random stranger to walk up to her and reveal they knew details about her that they could not possibly have had the means to acquire legitimately.

"I was informed by my superiors in NERV that I would be working alongside you and the other pilots" he calmly explained, taking pains to sound as nonthreatening as possible. "And I am beyond happy to make your acquaintance."

His genuinely modest voice seemed to relieve Asuka the slightest bit as her gritted teeth and fists relaxed the slightest bit. This boy did seem friendly enough, rugged as he appeared.

"You're hurt." He noted, pointing at the bruised area of Asuka's arm which Asuka had been clutching earlier to try and soothe. "What happened? Is it serious?"

"It's fine, idiot. Really it is. It's nothing." Asuka snarled, not wishing to expose another sign of weakness to embarrass herself further.

"Did someone hit you?" he asked, seemingly truthfully concerned for her wellbeing. It was the same voice her parents would have used when she was still part of a loving family, believing in the false hope that such a luxury would last forever and taking every moment of it for granted.

"Yes!" she eventually answered, giving in to his soothing mannerisms. "Someone did hit me and for no good reason. It was completely not fair. I did nothing to deserve it whatsoever. That someone, was supposed to be my best friend and they not only hit me, they locked me out of their house and now I have nowhere to sleep."

"Can you not go back to your own home?"

"The only person in my house is a lazy drunk whose probably too drunk to even answer the door if I did go there. And earlier today, a stupid little thief stole my apartment keys. Not that I would want to go back there anyway now."

Misato's constant drinking and other unsavoury life habits had always made any time Asuka was forced to spend in that apartment without Shinji, deeply unpleasant. That idiot did make that place at least tolerable, as much as she hated to admit it.  
She really would rather be in an EVA risking her life.

"Would you like to come to my place then? NERV provided me with my own private room in their building and it's fairly comfortable. I can take you there now if you want."

How he managed not to sound like a stalker with a crush vocalizing that request, god alone knew.

"Grr. Fine" Asuka eventually responded after a long pause. "Take me there. But don't try anything if you don't want my fist in your face."

"But of course. I would never wish to upset my fellow pilot, especially one who has given so much to the world" he politely complimented as he walked to the still fairly packed street to hail a cab.

"Compliments will get you nowhere with me, creep." She uttered annoyedly under her breath as a cab stopped beside them just seconds later and Kaworu helped her inside, before climbing in himself and ordering the driver to take them to NERV HQ. Though deep down, his entire way of addressing had made her bizarrely pleased that someone somewhere acknowledged her superiority.

Kaworu sat in quiet contemplation during the ride. While it was true that he did not approve one bit of the violent acts of domestic abuse he already knew that Asuka had committed upon Shinji, undoing any good she may indeed have done for the world as a pilot, mankind's mission still dictated that any personal differences between him and his fellow pilots be left far behind for the good of all.

He had no love for war, and he had even less respect for hypocrisy. Even if Asuka was a target to eliminate on his list, she was also a pilot and to lose her was to lose the battle.  
Nor did he believe in grudges, which made every party only more unhappy.

From the tears she had tried without success to conceal from him when he first stumbled upon as well as the evident seriousness of the injury on her arm, he would say she had been punished enough.  
And even if she wasn't, it simply wasn't right to answer violence with violence.

Homura Akemi didn't make the decision to begin to try and get better when Madoka chose to treat her as badly as the rest of the world had been treating her up to that point. She chose reformation when Madoka chose niceness.

And if someone as broken and lost as Homura could be changed be simple human kindness and compassion, Kaworu was sure Asuka could as well. His time spent sharing literature with Mari had made him something of an optimist. And as bad as Asuka's actions towards Shinji were as tasteless as Rei claimed, he didn't think Shinji would approve of seeing her poorly treated.  
That boy had to have had the forgiveness of a saint to put up with this girl for so many years. Kaworu could at least try to be half as decent as him.

They reached NERV's headquarters where Kaworu headed to a block of buildings slightly separate from the main building with Asuka reluctantly leaning on his shoulder, unable to walk well with her injury.

A short elevator ride later and they reached a small door at the end of a red velvet carpeted hallway with beautiful oak floors and hallways. Kaworu swiped a card from his pocket into a nearby scanner and opened the door to reveal a generously sized bedroom with two well cleaned and well-arranged beds and a bathroom further inside the room. A huge painting of a Sakura tree with pink blossoms decorated one of the walls. The carpeting matched that of the corridor they had come through.

"Show me the injury, I have something which should hopefully make it better." He instructed as he turned the lights on, to which Asuka very reluctantly took off her uniform leaving only her yellow tank top and pants allowing him to see the full extent of the horrific bruise which a furious Hikari had inflicted upon her.

In answer, he opened a nearby wardrobe revealing a bottle of vodka which had become all the tastier in the four years and a bit it had been sitting here.  
As Germans loved their bratwurst and strudel pastry, Russians loved a good glass of high-quality vodka.

Very carefully, he applied a small amount of the expensive alcohol on the bruise, causing the redhead to wince and cry out a little at first, only to sigh quietly in relief a few moments later.

This idiot was a friendly idiot, she would give him that.

"I'd give you painkillers, but I'm afraid I don't have any." He apologetically stated as he took a glass from another section of the same wardrobe and tipped a small amount of vodka into it. He presented it to a now much less in pain Asuka.

"I don't drink." She simply stated, her reluctance to try new things which she was not familiar with combined with her strong aversion to any kind of alcohol in the years spent in constant contact with a drunk major speaking for her, despite how tasty the drink looked even from a distance.

"Try a bit." He insisted. "it will make you feel better. As long as you don't take too much, you'll be fine." To which Asuka's better judgements finally gave way to curiosity and she slowly took a few sips.

It was strong and fiery, with a definite edge to its flavour like a sword cutting across her taste buds. Exactly the sort of taste she liked in her food and beverages.  
"I can see why Germany liked Russia in the past" she mused to herself as she drank the rest.  
This idiot was a man of culture.

"It's good" she could not help but state as she finished.

"I knew you would like it" he replied as he took two sets of pyjamas from the wardrobe, one of which he placed gently beside his new roommate and one he kept for himself.

"If you want, the shower and the bath are over there." He pointed to the doorway leading to the bathroom. "I'm going to try and get some sleep now. I'm still tired after waking up from my coma."

"You're what?"

"The reason I've not been joining you on your missions is because I've been in a coma for a while. And before that, I was often sent to other countries on missions. I've recovered now though, so you can expect to see me with you in the next battle, if there is one."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever"

"Hey. Have you met my friend Mari. From what I've been told, she's a pilot too now." He nearly grimaced as he said these words. Part of the reason he joined NERV was so that she wouldn't have to. Though he did have to give props to her devotion to him and her courageous selflessness. And if it meant more friends to work alongside in an otherwise bleak and risky mission with no end in sight, that was always a positive.

He just hoped they would all survive to see a world with no more Angels and Impacts. Asuka included. No pilot left behind.

"I have, and I don't like her. She's so annoying and I don't care for her in the slightest." She turned away from him as she winced slightly. Another reason, not that she'd care to reveal it, was that Mari was secretly taking more and more of stupid Shinji's attention for herself, along with Rei. It was becoming a bad habit of those with Nami in their names to do so.

"Give her time" he said in a slightly teasing tone. "She'll grow on you. She might seem a little out of the ordinary, but that's what makes her such an interesting character. And then, maybe all us pilots should have a little get together. Just because it's the end of times, doesn't mean we can't have some fun as well."

"You talk too much." She simply said as she headed into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

"I'll take that as a yes" Kaworu whispered to himself as he changed into his sleeping clothes, jumped into his bed and turned the lights off and managed to pull the duvet over himself as a wave of drowsiness he had been concealing hit him head on and his head sank limply onto his pillow.

"When the time comes, all of us will get along smashingly." He mumbled as sleep took him over. A few things would have to be done before then, but he was firm in his belief that Asuka could still make amends.

Nearly an hour later, Asuka had finished her daily long dip in a hot bath and upon finding Kaworu fast asleep already, put on the set of pyjamas he had provided for her and settled into bed herself after turning the lights off.

A very strange feeling came over the usually confident German girl as she tried without success to drift off, despite how soft the bed, blankets and her pyjamas were.  
Even though she had been tended to by a very attentive companion for the past few hours, a part of her felt that this was wrong on every level.

The vodka had done a good job soothing the physical pain of her injury, but it had only made the emotional dagger Hikari planted into her skin along with the poker cut even deeper.  
She began to think that as wrong as her friend had been to overreact in such a manner over something she felt was so petty, that it had been somewhat justified. And that having the pain of that blow removed prematurely, only made her feel dishonoured rather than relieved.

Though every one of Kaworu's words had been spoken in a respectful and calm manner with no bearing of hostility, something in each word he said made it blatantly apparent that he was not doing any of these kind acts for her because he had any real respect for her as a person.

He was treating her well out of duty, because they were both pilots that the world depended upon for its future. As a subtle and unintentional way of declaring that he was better than her. And most of all, because his close bond to his friends no doubt with Shinji among them, prevented him from being harsh with her.

He was doing these favours for Shinji, Mari, Rei and the rest of the innocent people who had not done any wrong in the world and therefore deserved to live in peace.  
Not for her, a dishonoured rat who had only fallen down the dark path of her domestically abusive father, that long ago she had sworn she would avoid.

Though her bed was only a few inches from his, Asuka had never felt more alone in her life than now. Every one of the compliments and favours he had provided her, rang hollow, merely formalities. Medals of honour given to a scumbag with no honour.  
She would have felt better if he had called her names and delivered a forceful beating upon her before throwing her into a wall the way she had once thrown Shinji into one.

"Shinji. Where are you." She uncontrollably sobbed as she tried without success to close her reddened and bloodshot eyes. "Come back to me so I can hug you. I can't do this on my own."

Horrible pictures sprang before her in answer to her completely unreasonable request.

A picture of Shinji smiling and standing next to an equally content Rei was first, followed by another one of Shinji standing next to Mari, both of them still all smiles.

A picture of Shinji with Hikari.  
One of Shinji with Misato.  
Another one! Shinji with Dr Akagi.  
And one of him with Maya.

Now Shinji was standing next to Kaworu, who was not even a girl and who had never even met Shinji.

"Ich Hasse dich Asuka. Ich hasse dich Asuka." She heard the brown-haired introverted son of NERV's chief intone again and again despite there being no one else in the room but her and a sleeping Kaworu.  
Her negative emotions were corrupting her language lobes once more and the German/Deutsch setting was being enabled by default.

What? No. Shinji was now next to Kaji. That was impossible. Since when were those two a thing?

And then Asuka could no longer tell the second person in each mental image as one after another of Shinji standing next to a different person each time always smiling, flashed before her very anguished eyes. No matter who the second person was, Shinji was always smiling.

And it was never ever, her. Never.

Unable to take any more of these tormenting thoughts, Asuka buried her face into her pillow like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

She opened her mouth to scream despite her corrupted language lobes severely limiting her speech options. It was lucky that the pillow was made of very thick and sound muffling cotton and Kaworu was a very heavy sleeper still suffering from the effects of a recently finished coma.

"SHINJI. KOMMT ZURUCK. ICH VERMISSE DICH!"

Ironic that a book of all things could bring completely different individuals together.  
It was as if that night as Tokyo 3 rested for once in tranquillity and civility, there were three Homura's each accompanied by their matching Madoka's, all at different points in their long and difficult journeys.

Asuka, the young and still very homicidal Homura who had recently discovered the meaning of niceness upon meeting an equally young Madoka.

Rei, the now far more sensible Homura who had decided not simply to quit the way of villainy but to embrace the one of selflessness and heroism. The previous one sought simply to do no wrong, but this one looked for any chance to do right. Who had been accepted not by only Madoka, but Madoka's friends and their friends too.

And Ritsuko Akagi, the now almost omniscient older Homura, who had taken Madoka's place as the reasonable one who knew right from wrong, while Misato, her Madoka became corrupted and crazed. The cycle of a hero choosing to help a villain through niceness for them to become the next hero, was about to repeat itself.

Help another so that one day when you could be helped by them when you could no longer help yourself. The law of the beautiful cycle that was friendship.

...

_Another chapter. Thanks once again to all my reviewers for reviewing.  
You'd be surprised at the vast quantity of Asuka X Kaworu fan works despite them never interacting in the series. You'd also be amazed at the number of fans who like to draw fanarts of the different characters being tied up in one form or another.  
So I decided, why not implement both these trends into my story._

_A lot of stories which fix Shinji's problem have either Shinji or another character being just as jerkish as the characters the author intends to punish, which defeats the purpose of the story since now Shinji or another character has been made into a bully instead. Not to mention, canon Shinji would never use unnecessary cruelty even on his tormentors in the series.  
And yes, Asuka does have a tragic backstory and she has saved the world a few times as well, so there's that too. So what I wanted, was to have a story where Asuka and the other mean characters receive some consequences but where Shinji and the other nice characters are still nice people._

_As well as to give much needed characterisation to a character I believe got far less screentime than I believe she should have gotten. _


	22. The morning of comic con day

**Chapter 22: The morning of comic con day.**

_Note: Get ready to laugh your head off._

Chief Gendo Ikari had spent the entirety of the previous evening in his money vault, counting up the night countless stacks of notes and coins he had amassed from a lifetime of extortion and thievery.  
He counted and counted till he grew tired and could count no more and he drifted off to sleep on a throne made entirely out of money notes.

It was only the next morning when he would awaken to find that Rei was not in her usual bedroom.

The reaction of the grown man and CEO of the world's second largest business, would have made the spoiled one year old baby of the bespoke Kardashian family, shake their head in disbelief.  
He dashed madly through every room of every last one of NERV's official buildings, screaming her name as he made a huge mess turning the furniture in each room upside down, breaking the door of a metal safe with a chainsaw when he couldn't get it open by kicking it down.

He was frothing at the mouth like he had drunk ten times his weight in coffee. The staff members unlucky enough to be in his way quickly ran for it, some of them hiding under tables or in wardrobes which did them no good when he threw open their hiding places anyway and tossed them aside when he saw they were not Rei.

"Hey chief, are you alright?" one poor soldier had tried to ask only to be shoved down a flight of stairs as the chief shouted in a deafening roar "YOU'RE NOT REI!".  
The soldier fell to the floor below with several cracked ribs and multiple fatal head injuries.  
"I was only trying to help" he sobbed quietly.

"Find me Rei" the chief of NERV eventually ordered in a soft but deadly voice upon reaching his desk as luckless as when he began his search. "Find her. Or I'll throw every last one of you in the torture chamber and have you killed as slowly and painfully as possible for mutiny."

"Erm. Sir. We haven't seen her. We swear, we've checked every last camera feed but there's no sign of her here." The security guard in charge of the camera's piped up only to be grabbed by the collar.

"You are going to search every last inch of the city if it's what it takes." He roared as the man in his grasp shook and shivered. "And if that's not enough, you are going to search every inch of this country. And every corner of this planet when that doesn't work. Find me, my Rei. Find her, or suffer the consequences."

He pushed the security guard backwards so forcefully that he crashed into a wall.

"Y, yes sir. Whatever you say, Mr Ikari. Just please, don't hurt me. I haven't seen her, I swear." the man sobbed as he rushed away only to be stopped by Gendo menacingly raising a hand.

"Assemble a squad of personal guard for me before you go. I'll search for her personally myself." He said as he put on the dark purple overcoat he kept on his chair.

"You are going to come back to me, Rei, you little bastard" he threatened as he gruffly stood up "You are going to do your job and unite me with my Yui."

He peered at a picture of Yui he had on his desk. "And you Yui. How dare you disobey me by leaving me like that. You are mine and mine alone. And this time, when I get you back. I will never let you go."

He had dreamed countless nights about what he would do with his wife when he eventually got her back after going so far to revive her. He would give her a warm welcome back into the world of the living, before giving her a ferocious beating so severe that she would never think to abandon him again.  
And if she tried to escape after that, the maximum-security prison cell that not even his guards liked to go near, did have its uses.

The reinforced door to that cell (which could withstand a rocket launcher) had twenty separate locks each requiring a different key. And when all twenty of those locks were unlocked, there was still a twenty-digit code machine that gave anyone who inputted an incorrect code, a fatal electric shock. No one, not even Yui would be getting out of that one anytime soon. Especially with cuffed hands and in a strait jacket.

Though hopefully the beating would be enough to remind her of his eternal supremacy over her. Needless to say, that his son Shinji would have outlived his usefulness long before then.

…

It was comic con day in Tokyo 3 as the sun came up, rousing every resident inside the Makanami mansion, recently renamed the Ikari mansion in reference to its owner's new status as Chief Ikari's son's wife.

The three Ikari's and their butler Sakura had been up since the crack of dawn, busy readying their costumes in a desperate attempt to impress the others.  
Each wanted to be the one with the most eye-catching appearance and yet to have an outfit true to themselves and what they stood for, for this was the true meaning of one of the few annual festivals Japan still maintained after the Impact devastated much of the world.

It was said that the one who dressed most accordingly to their inner self this day, would be rewarded with eternal bliss and cheer as long as they should live. So sayeth, the sacred church of Anime. A new but rapidly growing religion which was set to overtake Christianity and Judaism soon in the near future despite the initial flak it had gotten.

It was Mari Ikari who was first to open the door to her room. Her usual red glasses had been replaced with contact lenses so well designed, one would have to use a magnifying glass to know they were there. Her attire was surprisingly humble for one usually flamboyant.  
It consisted of only a yellow blouse worn outside a plain white shirt, with a black skirt lined with a bit of white and dark leggings. Nothing that would have seemed out the ordinary in any run of the mill school.

The three remaining aspects of the outfit were what really sold its worth of the price of admission.  
One was a simple white nametag on which the sentence "Hello, my name is: Mami Tomoe". The second was the red bowtie Mari wore just beneath the collar of her uniform, which despite fitting in beautifully with the rest of the her clothes, was in reality a high-tech voice modifying device which perfectly modified the tone and pitch of every word Mari spoke as long she wore it.

An invention that would have baffled the greatest minds in NERV and SEELE combined.

It's current setting: "Confident leader girl, ready to rock and roll."

The third aspect which really completed the look that perfectly expressed the full personality of confident and easily excitable Mari Ikari in her entirety, her dyed blonde hair, the two tails of which had been adjusted to curl in a spiral rather than straight.

"I love comic con day" she cheered as she strutted confidently downstairs to wait for the two remaining Ikari's to be ready. She couldn't wait to see what they chose.

Shinji was next. He had spent the past half hour obsessively looking into the mirror again and again in the hopes he had gotten everything right. After searching the entirety of Mari's very expansive costume cupboard, he had come to the conclusion that his current choice would suit him best even if it was clearly an outfit designed for a girl and not a boy.

A good thing he was not the racist and sexist bigot his dad was.

His clothing was virtually identical to Mari's in every way, down to the skirt, bowtie and nametag.

Only his short hair was dyed pink and tied into two much smaller tails by two slightly more dark toned pink bows. The writing on his nametag wrote: "Why hi there, my name is: Madoka Kaname. I only wish to make the world a better place, through any sacrifice necessary."  
The sentence that clearly outlined through text, what his outfit intended to make clear about his overarching intentions in his life.

His voice setting set firmly to: "Suicidal masochist girl, determined to make a positive difference regardless"

He rubbed his head as for the last time, he headed back into his room to take a peek in the mirror at his handiwork. He never guessed he would be such a great fashion designer with how rarely he was allowed the cosmetics and body clean closet with Asuka hogging it.

It would be some time later before the until today very introverted Rei finished her preparations. As would be expected, she had the exact same school uniform like outfit.  
With one difference. Rei now sported a purple pair of reading glasses which were completely unnecessary to her eyes, sharp as they were with her being an artificial human. They simply added to the motif provided by her voice setting of: Angsty bookworm of kindness level 9 quadrillion out of 100.

Her nametag had written in bold: "Homura Akemi at your service, I'm **mostly** harmless but harm my dear and precious friends at your own risk."

The "mostly" was underlined and written in extra bold in a fancier text.

Her waist length hair now dyed midnight black, was tied into two intricate braids which took far more work than the tails in the hair of Shinji and Mari. A very dark purple hairband made her already very out of the blue hairstyle stand out only more.

A single hair flip could cause fainting if it came from her.

For Rei as she headed down the stairs to join the two people who had become her precious family yesterday evening, she congratulated herself for being able to select an appearance that would flawlessly communicate her newfound pride in life now that she had finally been declared a sister of her beloved Shinji-kun, as well as the sheer sorrow she had felt in the years she spent separated from him as Gendo's puppet, doing evil thing she knew were evil.

She was not at all envious that it was Mari who would end up tying the knot with him. So long as it made him happy and so long as she took good care of him.  
To be frank, she was sort of relieved it had ended this way. She loved Shinji but wasn't in love with him in that way. The problem wasn't so much that they weren't similar, but that they were too similar with almost identical strengths and weaknesses.

As strange as it sounded, Rei had instinctively known since their first meeting that any marriage between them could only have been short and unhappy.  
Rei was graciously pleased to accept the title of "little sister" instead, gaining a big brother in Shinji and a sister in law in Mari.

She did a hair flip as she elegantly waltzed into the dining room where Shinji and Mari in their costumes were already seated. She was getting rather good at making a grand entrance and it was becoming a hobby of hers.

Shinji had been able to keep his nose dry from her previous makeover, but nothing could protect him this time from Rei's radiant beauty as red begun to leak from the gaps of the hands, he used to cover the two holes in his nose.

"Good morning, starshine. The Earth says hello." Mari greeted in his place, beckoning for Rei to sit in the seat right next to Shinji at the round table they would be dining at.  
The circular shape emphasizing that in this family and household, none would have precedence and all opinions were welcome.

"Um, hello Mari." Rei begun only to quickly be interrupted as Mari shook her head in a slightly amused manner, stroking the blonde spiral tails in her hair.

"For today, you will address me as Mami Tomoe, senior magical girl." she giggled.

"And you shall refer to me as Homura Akemi. Most powerful magic girl to ever walk this Earth." Rei quickly replied, giggling as well. "As well as the only one to beat you once in a fight, fair and square."

"Which makes me Madoka Kaname." Shinji added also in his modified voice, now that his nose was beginning to stabilize a little.

"Shall we go to the outdoor festival today, girls?" the so called Mami asked after they had finished a scrumptious breakfast of sausage, baguette, olives and fromage. "It will be a spectacular event with a lot of people and fun."

"I would like that very much." Homura immediately answered.

"As would I" Madoka shyly but eagerly agreed.

"Then what are we waiting for. Let's go already. We're going to miss the best part of it if we don't hurry." Mami shrieked as she leapt up and headed towards the door with her two companions and new family members following closely behind, Homura leaning on Madoka's shoulder.

This would be the best first family trip that the world had seen in an age.

…

Misato woke up feeling even groggier than usual. "I must have overdone the drinking last night" she nonchalantly mused to herself as she then tried without success to stand. It was then that she begun to realize that her hands were tied behind her back and her legs were also bound tightly together by very thick and sturdy rope.

She felt a slight searing pain in her left shoulder with each movement she made, as if something sharp had pierced her skin there.  
This odd sensation only added to her alarm further as her vision cleared to reveal that this wasn't even her apartment. She had been moved during her sleep.

The one explanation she could think off, was that all this was the doing of a petty but sizeable group of hippies who called themselves "WILLE".  
Who claimed to stand against everything NERV and SEELE stood for and had the audacity to accuse them of being the ones to cause the Impact as well as already planning to cause another one.

But even as that thought passed her mind, Misato still felt something was wrong. This room was too tidy and felt too lived in to be simply another generic prison. The rug spread on the floor in front of her was too well arranged. There were pots and pans on a counter next to a sink, visible in a room that Misato could see but couldn't reach.

There were pictures on the wall and on a mantle not far from her. One of them was a photograph of two smiling brown-haired women with a cool and scholarly gleam in their eyes.  
The eyes of the Akagi's.

Memories of last night begun to come back to the purple haired Major of NERV, first in a trickle and then a flood. Memories of a sternly frowning Ritsuko looking at her with disgust as her vision dimmed and she blacked out as a sharp object lodged itself through her skin from behind.

Unable to free herself after repeated attempts hindered by her alcohol atrophied muscles which had progressively weakened over years of irresponsible drinking, Misato took to screaming as loudly as she could. Hopefully someone else in this building would hear her plight and have it in them to rescue a high-ranking officer of a respectable organisation that kept them safe.

"That won't work, Misato" she heard an all too familiar voice of shrewdness sound from a room nearby.  
"I soundproofed the walls and severed the door intercom system so that no one would hear you."

"Ritsu? What do you mean? What is happening?" Misato asked in sheer bewilderment as a complete stranger clad in a yellow blouse, white shirt and black and white skirt stepped into the room.

"Feel free to shout as loudly as you like. No one will come for you." The woman quipped as she stroked her long, purple-pink hair. Though her voice was slightly different, Misato could still tell that this was undeniably Ritsuko even if she was speaking through a voice modification device.

As Ritsuko stepped a little closer, pleased with how her hair growth formula which had until recently been a failed prototype had turned out well after all with a few tweaks, Misato could see that she was also wearing a white nametag.  
It read: "What up, You can call me: Kyoko Sakura. I'm hip and sassy. Woohoo."

What Misato did not see was that the setting on her voice modification bowtie had been set to: Coolest hipster tomboy to have ever lived.

"Why are you dressed like that?" Misato could not help but ask despite her usual no-nonsense attitude beckoning for her to escape as soon as possible so that she could arrive at work in a timely fashion expected of her.

"It's comic-con day. You can wear whatever you want as long as it suits you. Do you like it?" Ritsuko nonchalantly stated, crossing her arms.

"Let me go right now, Ritsuko. This isn't funny."

"Err. I know this seems like an odd thing to ask of you, but for the sake of today being comic-con, can you call me Kyoko? I'd appreciate it."

Misato's face got redder as she rocked about helplessly in the black armchair she had been placed upon. "Fine. Ritsuko. Kyoko. Whatever. When I get out of here, I'm going to grind you into chum. Now, get me out of here."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. The way you've been treating your adoptive son like he's nothing more than a slave and a punching bag, disgusts me. Do you not see what poor Shinji has had to go through all these years? All the struggles he already faces on the battlefield fighting Angels in his EVA? And you never once thought to cut him some slack, or at the very least, do your duty as a Major properly and punish Asuka for assaulting a fellow pilot, which is one of the most important laws of NERV?"

Misato opened her mouth to complain hotly but Kyoko wasn't done with her disparaging admonishment yet.

"All you care about Misato, is who you can assert your dominance over. You're perfectly happy to take all your negative emotions on soft and kind Shinji, and you let Asuka's worst actions slide just like that?  
And you didn't even have the guts to acknowledge how useless you were as a guardian and give Shinji to a more caring home when you had the chance. Well now, you have no choice. Now, you're going to stay here and think about what you've done while Shinji gets sent somewhere where he can receive the better treatment he deserves."

Misato said nothing. Every one of Ritsuko, err Kyoko's points hit bullseye. Not a single word was made up. Despite her remaining anger at being kidnapped, she was beginning to look shamefaced.

"I'm only doing this so that Shinji can be moved to another home." Kyoko explained, still smoothing her long adorable hair. "I can't let you go until Gendo agrees to transfer Shinji after he declares you missing. I have to go now, but I'll stop by after work. Until then, my good friend Sayaka, Maya to you, will take good care of you. I'm sorry, but this has to be done."

Taking her white lab coat from a hanger on the wall, Kyoko began to head towards the door. She paused upon turning the handle to open the door to leave.  
"Oh and Misato. Maya takes comic-con day really seriously. Even more seriously than I do. So remember, she won't answer to Maya today. You need to refer to her as Sayaka."

Misato only sighed in defeat.

"Sayaka." Kyoko called into the room. "Make sure our guest is well treated during her stay here. You know what Homura will do to us if she isn't."

To which another voice cheerfully replied. "You got it, Senpai. Excellent treatment and nothing less."

"Well then" concluded Kyoko after a quick glance at the clock on the wall. "I have to go. Enjoy your stay in the paradise prison, Misato." And with that, the chief scientist of NERV left the room, the door quickly shutting behind her.

The second Kyoko's footsteps had finally died away, "Sayaka" waltzed giddily into the room. Misato had to admit that Maya looked pretty neat in a French maid outfit of black and white with her short hair painted the same pale blue as Rei's.

Though she could not see it, Misato could tell from the way Maya was talking that her voice setting had been set to: "Completely calm."

The interesting message on her nametag reading. "I'm Sayaka. It's nice to meet you. I love meeting new friends."

"Can I get you anything to eat or drink?" she politely asked the still tied up Misato.

"Let me go, Maya…" Misato started only to cower back in terror when usually soft-spoken Maya shouted at a volume that could shatter glass. "MAYA'S NOT HERE! ONLY SAYAKA!".

Misato had to tremble in silence for a few seconds to recover from that sudden tirade.

"Well then, let me go Sayaka. I need to go to work and get on with my life."

"I'll untie you when I can trust that you won't try to escape." Sayaka replied, dropping a bow as she did.  
"And if you do try to escape at any time…" Here she took out what to Misato was the worst torture device ever to exist in the known world. Worse than the gas chambers that the Germans used to gas prisoners of war. Worse than the stretching machine used in medieval ages to stretch a convict's limbs till they snapped. Worse than every known toxin used by the most cold-blooded interrogators to exact information from captured spies, combined together.

A long wooden pole, with a feather attached to the end. A very fluffy and feathery white feather, which Sayaka put to Misato's exposed skin and begun to lightly brush against it.

"Ha ha. Stop. Ha. I can't take it. Please stop." The Major pleaded as she convulsed while laughing uncontrollably. "Okay, I'll be good. Ha ha. Just stop."

"I'm glad we understand each other." Sayaka agreed as she took the feather away. "So can I get you anything to eat and drink in the meantime?"

"Some beer would be nice, and a nice seafood noodle soup would hit the spot too."

"You have very particular tastes my friend, but I will get that started for you. Until then don't go anywhere." The blue haired maid teasingly stated as she disappeared into the kitchen.

Misato was left alone to reflect on the confusing mess of emotions now pulsing through her mind.  
Perhaps she had been a little harsh on Shinji after all. After all, for Ritsuko and Maya to conspire together against her would have taken something to make them very enraged.

Maybe it was her who was the traitor after all, and not Ritsuko or Maya. Their words did make it clear that they had nothing against her but everything for Shinji.  
And maybe it was time that she started taking her duties of giving discipline to only those who deserved it, more seriously.

"When I get my hands on you Asuka, expect no mercy." Misato said to herself in spite of everything.

…

"Can I ask you a question, Asuka?" Kaworu asked the very instant a yawning and stiff-eyed Asuka lumbered out of the bath, still only in a bath towel.

"What is it?"

"Why are you so evil, Asuka?"

"W, what" Asuka stammered incredulously . "I'm not evil. I do lots of good things. I keep the world safe with my piloting skills and I risk my life on a day to day basis."

"Perhaps so. But that doesn't excuse your sadistic behaviour behind closed doors. It doesn't change the fact that you chose to attack a completely defenceless friend while taking advantage of his feelings for you. What do you have to say for yourself about the way you've abused poor Shinji all these years?"  
Kaworu didn't raise his voice but his voice was still pure venom. It was clear that were he one bit less of a pacifist, he would be swinging his fist into Asuka repeatedly by this point.

Asuka swore she could hear the theme tune of Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice playing in the background as sweat ran down her forehead and she gulped nervously.

This was the point where she was completely cornered with little hope of escape. Curse you, Rei.

"Well, I didn't have it easy you know" she spat, trying any means possible to stall for time. "I had a bad childhood. My dad killed my mum and left me all alone. It's not as if I could help Shinji even if I wanted to."

"But Mari had a bad childhood too" Kaworu pointed out. "She grew up starving in poverty, barely living from one day to the next. She never even got to know her mum since she lost her mum when she was born. And then she had to do nothing as watch as her dad was killed right in front of her, and she barely got away alive herself. And I didn't have it easy either. I also had to do nothing and watch as both my parents were eaten alive by an Angel which then proceeded to eat the village that I grew up in with all my loved ones in it. Do you think that was pleasant for me, Asuka?"

"Not exactly, but…"

"But I don't go around beating nice and decent people up simply because I feel like it. I at least try to make peace with my past and look for friends who can help me get through it all, and who I can help as well. The past is done, Asuka. Time never looks back. And the sooner you, NERV and SEELE realize that, the sooner we can really begin to rebuild the world as it was."

"I'm a good person" Asuka weakly tried to protest. "I do good things. I do"

"You do good things for those you protect with your EVA. I will admit that. But as for what you've done to Shinji, I'll leave you with just one question. How would you feel if someone did those things to you?"

"I've given him a lot of things." Asuka was grasping at straws now, as her voice got weaker and weaker and she begun to shiver despite the high temperature the heating in the room had been set to and the fact she had just come out of a steaming hot bath. "I've given, I've given the world a lot of things."

"But you don't give in" Kaworu wisely explained. "And that's not how the world works. The world began to improve when the first two human's became friends and agreed to work together to ensure a better future for them both. It is the reason man no longer needs to evolve any more. Not because they've hit an evolution barrier, as SEELE insists they have."

Kaworu took a look at the clock on the wall.

"I have to head out now. But I'll leave you with a card to my room so you can go in and out as you wish. As well as one more thing for you to think about."

He cocked his head slightly as he looked the German straight in the eyes.

"The harsh truth of life, that those who fight alone, die alone. And the only way we can win this war, is with your help. If you can't even put aside your differences with Shinji, then you'll have no future either. We'll all die together, and it'll be all your fault. And we'll be sure to remind you of it when we take our last breaths."

He placed the card in question on a nightstand, along with some money before silently leaving the room, not even bothering to close the door behind him.

This time, Asuka did not cry. She had used up all the tears in her eyes staying up all night in self-pity.

Instead for the first time in her life, she sat in silent contemplation the way she often saw Shinji do so, thinking deeply about all the things Kaworu had told her.  
He was right. Of course, he was right. Even from a pragmatic point of view, her mistreatment of Shinji was what was causing them bitter defeats that could have easily been valuable victories.

Even saying the words "I like you Shinji" could have gone a long way in making her and everyone else's life easier.

She could think of countless times her actions had made Shinji cry, but not one time where Shinji's did not make her smile.

The blood ran cold in her veins as without rhyme or reason, the girl still wrapped in only a bath towel staggered back to the bathroom and began to look at herself in the mirror.  
She was having a nervous breakdown.

Her reflection transformed into that of Shinji staring upon her in great fury. "Ugly" she heard his voice mockingly intone. "You really are the ugliest thing I've ever had the misfortune to see in my life."  
And then the reflection changed back into her own, except that the Asuka in the mirror was covered head to toe in streaking blood.

It leered at the now truly regretful and repentant Asuka, revealing a razor-sharp row of teeth.  
It was the killing blow for Asuka's now completely shattered psyche.

Her hands instinctively closed upon an object on a shelf in front of her. A keen pair of scissors.

Now with instinct in complete control of her body instead of her brain, Asuka brought the scissors to the long and attractive red hair that she spent an hour every day grooming to perfection, melding it into the priceless commodity that made her the eye candy of her school, whose milkshake brought all the boys to the yard.

First a snip.

Then a clip.

Snip, clip, snip, clip.

Such a lovely rhythm. How she loved the constantly repeating pattern. She just had to do it a little more.

A snip, then a clip, then another snip, and another clip.

She began to laugh crazily as she continued to cut away at her hair, which she once hit Shinji over when he had slipped while carrying too many dishes, causing a teeny tiny drop of sauce to go onto her head.  
It was the aspect of herself that a perfectionist spent the most time perfecting.

And now it had to go. It just had to. No reason, no justification and no excuses. It had to go. She didn't deserve it.

Rei had chosen to grow her hair out longer instead. Heh, another way in which they were polar opposites. This was Rei's reward and her punishment.

The bathroom floor and sink would be covered with strands of red by the time Asuka regained enough control of herself enough to stop cutting. Her hair would be just slightly longer than that of Shinji's, giving her a much more innocent and nonthreatening appearance, which would make the more perceptive kids who had once ran away from her on sight, want to come near her as often as possible.

It would make Shinji rethink everything he had known about his violent and abusive roommate, but nothing would make him forget the cruel things she had done to him. Nothing.

…

And as the three Ikari's in their costumes, arrived just in time for the huge festival in the park, Homura Akemi's last wish had been finally granted. She was spending time side by side with Madoka, as the best of friends.

…

_Author notes: Don't really know what to say here. But special thanks to fictionelement777, StraightEdgepyon and Darkscythe Drake and my other reviewers for reviewing. Please keep the reviews and favs coming if you wish to support me and thank you guys all for reading. I love you all so, so much._  
_And stay tuned for the next chapter which should come soon._

_Bye for now!_


	23. Will the real Rei please stand up?

**Chapter 23: Will the real Rei Ayanami please stand up?**

It could be said in a way that the outfits chosen by each one of the members of Shinji's team, two of them he did not know had joined him yet for comic-con day, reflected the beautiful changes that an evangelistic and saintly young boy had brought to their otherwise miserable lives before meeting him.

They saw him as a pioneering hero, and they wanted to show him this.

Their matching school uniforms reflecting their unity as a team that would stick together through thick and thin (with the exception of Maya whose maid outfit was worn for the benefit of appearing presentable before her guest and prisoner, Misato). Their differentiating voices, hair styles and nametag messages reflecting how as good friends, they respected each other's differences and uniqueness.

…

"I will find you, Rei" a maniacal Gendo cackled as he marched down a pavement surrounded by a platoon of his elite guards each one armed with a state-of-the-art assault-rifle capable of a dazzling rate of fie. "You can't escape from me. You belong to me."

One of the guards carried a handheld stereo, which played the Emperor's imperial march theme from Star Wars, as they marched in the direction of the park where the annual comic-con festival was being held. Being antisocial shut-ins with no social skills and knowledge of the outside world they had shut themselves away from, they would not realize until it was too late that everyone wore a mask in that festival.

…

Dressed as Homura Akemi, Rei Ayanami who had recently become Rei Ikari to her eternal delight, was having the day of her life.  
Not as great as yesterday when Shinji, Madoka to her for today, had forgiven her for her sins and ingeniously found a way to accept her into his family despite his engagement to Mari, but a wonderful one nonetheless.

Among a sea of other partygoers dressed in a host of other outfits, Homura Akemi was the shining beacon that drew the eyes of everyone causing spilled drinks, love heart eyes and of course lots and lots of nosebleeds, even more than on the day she grew out her hair.  
It was fun for her to have the chance to feel the sensation of being loved instead of feared for a change, and equally enjoyable to view the gallery of outfits chosen by the other citizens of Tokyo-3 on this special day where for once, the city became friendly enough to have a little get together in united celebration.

How many Mario's, Pikachu's and Zelda's could she look at before she got bored?  
A Donkey Kong stood on a stage nearby, doing the Gorilla dance while juggling bananas.  
A Light Yagami and Officer L were sat at a makeshift bar, laughing and telling jokes over a glass of frothing root beer. Their genuine laughter and merriment prevented Homura from vomiting over the sight of the alcohol.  
It was good to see two worst enemies put aside their differences for a change even if they were just costumes.

"You two go and enjoy yourselves. I'll just be here." Mari dressed in the school uniform and blonde spiral hair tails of Mami Tomoe said, as she took her seat on a chair beside a table with a crystal ball on it.  
"Who wants to have their fortune told by a senior magical girl next." Her voice sounded as Madoka and Homura (in reality Shinji and Rei) went off to enjoy the first day they had had to themselves in their lifetime.

And it was every kind of wonderful. They played party games, lots of party games. Homura's hammer swing broke the counter and she was given the entire wagon of cuddly toys as her prize.  
Madoka shot every balloon in the booth down with ruthless efficiency in just six shots. This was nothing compared to aiming an EVA's weapon at a constantly moving Angel's microscopic weak spot. She got enough sweets to last the three of them and their butler at least a year, if they ate double their recommended sugar intake every day.

"How'd you do that?" the clerk of both games asked the pair when they simultaneously won their sweet victory.

"Magic" they replied nonchalantly in unison. They were both magical girls after all, for the day at least.

Then the two of them danced to some sick, sick tunes. Neither of them had danced in their lifetime but Homura being an artificial human had excellent agility, and Madoka being the people's person she was, knew exactly what to do.

Several times they ended up carrying each other bridal style, each one taking turns to be the one being held up. They let each other enter their comfort zones without hesitation or fear. Asuka wasn't here to be a whiny, spoiled brat and the chief of NERV wasn't breathing down their necks.  
The incubators were far, far away from here as were the witches.

"I've finally found the perfect timeline" Homura rejoiced to herself as she swept her Madoka off of her feet. "Oh, my sweet Madoka. I will never leave you again. We really are in this together now." She understood fully well that this was a strictly platonic outing with no romance of any kind involved and was all the more relieved for that fact.

It was at this moment that a series of heavy-footed steps crunched across the gravel as the sound of a gunshot rang out across the compound, followed by shattering metal as the loudspeaker came to a dead stop as a stream of bullets thudded into it.

Homura wrapped her shaking arms around a trembling Madoka as from behind a tent, strode Chief Gendo Ikari surrounded by thirteen uniformed NERV guards with loaded guns pointed squarely at the crowd before them. Their uniforms were decorated with medals. These were decorated combat veterans.

"Party's over" the chief of NERV exclaimed, his words acting as a whip on the crowd of costumed partygoers. "Until I find which one of you is the real Rei Ayanami. No one moves, no one gets hurt."  
He fired a shot from his revolver to emphasize his point, causing an Ash Ketchum to backpedal back with a squeal, as the bullet came dangerously close to him.

"Don't worry Homura. I won't let them take you away again." Madoka promised as she returned a hysteric Homura's embrace. They had been apart for too many timelines now for it all to go to waste. And as far as they were concerned, Rei Ayanami did not exist today and so NERV had no business here.

"Uh I am?" A Princess Rosalina garbed in a blue dress piped up only to screech in pain when a bullet hit her in the shoulder.

"So, you think this is a joke. It's not. You are going to line up neatly and stand completely still while I find the real Rei Ayanami." Gendo barked as his gunmen motioned with their guns for everyone to move into a neat line, which was obeyed without further debate.

"You can go." Gendo eventually said, pointing to a Samus of Metroid at the far left of the line after looking at her long and hard. The young woman shook as she turned to beat a hasty retreat while one gunman kept a gun on her till she had left.

"And you." He said to the next in line, a young boy wearing a sonic the hedgehog suit. "Step up. You look suspicious.". The boy stepped up, was looked up and down with his pockets emptied, and eventually dismissed after a tense silence.

The pattern continued for a while as Madoka and Homura stood nervously awaiting their turn. It was a good thing Rei's Homura outfit came with glasses and braids as well as a voice modification bowtie.

"It's also a good thing that my master is a sucker for a pretty face." Homura whispered to Madoka as the scan continued. "With any luck, we can turn this to our advantage." Rei hated to have to step out of character, but it was necessary for Shinji to know that this cloud had a silver lining and for them to be ready to use it.

"Gotcha. I think I already have a plan" Madoka quietly replied, nodding ever so gently unnoticed by the guards.

One by one, the costumed partygoers were dismissed after being closely looked upon by the chief of NERV. A few were even forced to strip when he declared them "Suspicious". To Madoka and Homura's great relief, no one was shot. Homura wasn't sure that if one of them was marked as a target, that she would be able to stop herself from running forward and shouting. "Me, me. Turn your guns on me!"

She really prayed it didn't come to that. She had just been reunited with Madoka and Mami and had yet to see if the other magical girls again.

"Grr" Gendo roared after the twentieth partygoer, a Princess Nausicaa from the valley of the wind was reluctantly let go after being forced to strip to her pants. "Why aren't any of you Rei? Will the real Rei Ayanami please stand up already? I have candied sweets for you, Rei if you do."  
He grinned a wicked grin as he held up a bag of rotten candies that looked as if they had gone stale last year.

His gaze shifted to Homura and Madoka, who had to fight to hide their looks of pure disdain and hatred from him. "You there." He greeted with mock mildness, gesturing towards a flush faced Homura who was looking down. "Have you seen a certain Rei Ayanami somewhere, miss? She has short blue hair and red eyes. You can't miss her. Something in your eyes tells me you know, something."

"Erm, no kind sir. I don't know anything." Homura nervously answered with her hair covering her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"You know something. I know I do. When people look at me in the disrespectful way you are now, it can only mean lies. Tell me now what you know about Rei Ayanami and tell me the truth, or it'll be all the worse for you." Gendo demanded impatiently, levelling his revolver at the dark-haired girl in the school uniform and glasses.

"Rei Ayanami? Who's that? Is that someone who's trying to pretend to be me?" Homura quavered, having to force each word out of her mouth as she spoke it. "My name is Homura Akemi, sir. And I'm afraid I don't have any clue as to this Rei, you're talking about?"

"What's your profession, miss Akemi?" Gendo asked, out of the blue. He was not making this cross examination easy.

"I'm a magical girl sir. I keep the world safe from witches, nightmares and those blasted incubators who won't leave us in peace, otherwise." This was true, at least for today. She would have liked to add that she was the most powerful magic girl who had once pulled an angelic demigod from the sky, but no need to be big headed now was there?

"I see." Gendo grunted as he scratched his head trying to decipher something, he knew was there but trying to hide itself.

"And I'm Madoka Kaname. Homura's friend and another magical girl." Madoka quickly added. "And you are?" Shinji may have known perfectly well the identity of the big and evil man in front of her, but Madoka did not.

"Gendo Ikari. Chief executive officer of NERV laboratories and security company." The chief said offering his hand which Homura politely managed to shake. "It's an honour to make your acquaintance."  
The other people in the line tried to take a step back but the guards raised their guns higher causing them to stand still again.

"Well Mr Ikari sir. We haven't seen the Rei Ayanami you described to us, but perhaps if we take you to our friend Mami Tomoe, she may have." Offered Homura, doing one of her signature hair flips which was dazzling even with her braids in the way.

"How very helpful of you, Miss Akemi." Gendo replied, completely captivated by this gesture despite his cold heartedness. "Lead the way."

Two guards came to Gendo's side as he gestured for them to follow him. "As for the rest of you, my guards will check you one at a time and you'll be let go only when they say you can go."

"Can my friend, Madoka come with us? She's the one who knows where Mami might be." Homura pouted a little.

"I suppose so, yes. Miss Kaname, lead us to your other friend." Gendo gestured for Madoka to lead the way which she gladly began doing, taking care to stay a little ahead of both Homura and Gendo.

This could work out just brilliantly. Shinji's father really was a sucker for a pretty face and it was what would do him in.

…

Maya, today to be known as Sayaka, fed the tied-up Misato the seafood noodle soup she requested like a mother feeding her child. "Open up, here comes the plane." Sayaka chirped as she raised a spoon which Misato opened her mouth for.  
She made a plane noise as she placed the admittedly very delicious contents of the spoon into the purple haired major's mouth.

"It tastes good." Misato could not help but admit.

"Shinji, I mean Madoka taught me how to do it." Sayaka explained happily. "I learned from the best."

Shinji did that, thought Misato. Wow.

"Can you please untie me now. I promise I'm not going to try and escape anymore, and as good as this meal is, I can't enjoy it tied up like this. Please?"

Sayaka looked Misato up and down while smoothing her short blue hair.

"Not that you could escape anyway. I have a black belt in karate." Sayaka eventually said when she saw the true honesty in the major's expression. "I did say I was going to let you go" she said as she untied the knots, keeping a close eye on Misato all the while.

A single threatening gesture and she would get a karate chop to the face. Homura may have been the most powerful magical girl, but no one could match Sayaka's unarmed fighting style. This was what advanced training in NERV which Misato skipped, did for her.

"Finally." Misato said upon feeling the freedom in her hands and legs as she picked up the bowl of noodle soup and spoon to eat it herself.  
She appreciated being fed like a child, but realized it was not a good mark of the good major she would try to do a truly better job of being.

"Do you feel bad about what you did to Shinji yet?" Sayaka asked.

At this question, the world seemed to stop moving. Time seemed to suspend. Major Misato dropped the bowl, causing hot soup and noodle to spill all over the wooden flooring. She buried her face into her hands and turned away, not wanting to show weakness to an officer of lower ranking.

"Everything he did, he did to make you proud, Misato. He piloted so well in spite of piloting being the last thing he would ever want to do. He lived for you Misato, and he would gladly have died for you." Though Sayaka realized how hurt the major already was, now was not the time to pull any punches.  
Misato needed to know the full extent of how badly she had screwed up, so that she could learn and get better.

Terrible images she wanted to keep forever buried away began to flare up once more in Misato's mind. Memories of her wasted youth that she had never gotten to enjoy, forcing her to grow up quickly, too quickly for her comfort. Abuse. Terrible abuse and pain, so much pain.  
And to think that one of her abusers ended up being the one she owed her life towards. It really was f*cked up in every sense of the word.

And Shinji had been the polar opposite of every one of her abusers. He had been more of a parent to her than her parents to her, or even her to him, and she was a middle-aged woman approaching old age. The list of things he had given her that she had been thankful to have, was a list as endless as the stars in the sky. If she were to begin to list them, she would still be there when she was old and grey, and still have a long, long way to go.

She couldn't think of one thing she had done for Shinji.

"I should have taken him away from you a long time ago." Sayaka shouted as Misato continued to look away. "I honestly thought you could relate to that boy after all you've been through when you were young. I honestly believed you could take good care of him. But I guess I'm the idiot for thinking that."

A very painful sob began to infest in Misato's now very painful chest.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on us both. We're both idiots Misato. Big and stupid idiots who aren't worth the space we take up on this Earth. And if you ever try to go near Shinji after all you've put him through, I'm gonna call a code blue."

"Black. Maya. It's code black" Misato said in great sadness, on the verge of a sob. It was one thing for angsty fourteen-year olds to cry, but she was a grown woman.

"You call it black; I call it blue. But either way, I'm warning you Misato. Try coming ten feet within Shinji again and I'm going to call a code blue black."

A single quiet, strained but still audible sob escaped the purple haired woman's mouth as she finally gave in to her feelings and looked up to let Sayaka see the tears in her eyes, that she was holding back.  
"What have I done?" she quietly asked as she allowed herself to be patted gently on the back a few times.

For once in her life, the major in charge of every battle plan that the EVA pilots used, had no plan.

"What have I do?" she asked, more to herself than anyone else as she stared at the floor to avoid Sayaka's vindictive glare. "What do I do?"

"How about a good movie to pass the time?" Sayaka suggested, hearing Misato's musings despite the quiet voice she used. "Like this one."

She bounced giddily to the television in front of the chair Misato was sat in, and from a shelf beneath the table it was placed upon, drew out a DVD box which she raised so that Misato could see the title screen in its glorious entirety.

"Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Movie 3, Homura's Rebellion." Misato read, more absorbed in the beautiful picture of the dark-haired girl doing an epic hair flip than the title.  
"What's it about?"

"A journey, into self-awareness." Sayaka replied as she plopped the disk into the TV before turning it on, and a few commercials began to come on. "Watch it. Watch it and you'll soon see why when our noble leader Homura takes over the world, all our problems will be over and why everyone, Madoka included, should aspire to her greatness."

Seeing no other idea in her troubled state of mind, Misato made herself comfortable against the armchair she was seated in while Sayaka placed a bag of salted popcorn on the armrest beside her.

She was about to have her mind utterly blown. More so than when she saw the most ferocious Angels come within an inch of causing the second impact.  
…

"And here she is." Madoka eagerly announced as Homura and Gendo followed her to the table where Mami was just finishing reading the palms of a young blonde-haired elf named Link, foretelling him of a great destiny where he rescued the girl of his dreams. He unsheathed his souvenir sword as he left the fortune telling table with new purpose in his until now soulless existence.

"She's very pretty" the usually cold Gendo had to admit, already blushing over the several hair-flips that Homura had pulled for him during their trip here. They just had to keep the illusion up a little longer.

Madoka walked up to her blonde-haired friend. "Excuse me Mami. This nice gentleman here says he's looking for a girl with red eyes and short blue hair named Rei. I heard you mention to me a while ago that you saw someone like this earlier today." She subtly made a nod to Mami who subtly nodded in return. Mami had always been good at thinking on her feet and Madoka was sure she could handle this situation just as well.

"Good day sir." Mami politely said, looking up so that Gendo might see her wisdom filled eyes in the entirety of their arcane brilliance. "I take it you're looking for a certain girl who must mean a lot to you."

"You have it exactly, Miss Tomoe, is it?"

"That's right. Now I believe if my friend Madoka's description of this girl as you told her, is correct, then I did indeed see a stranger of this description on my way here today after all. I believe I also saw her accompanied by another stranger."

"Tell me of this other stranger." Gendo demanded with a hint of impatience.

"I believe it may have been a boy." Mami replied, taking care not to sound too sure. "Yes, that's it. A short, young boy with brown hair."

Gendo's already taciturn expression began to crease up even more. His hands were balling into fists as his guards tightened their grip on their guns. It was clear he was agitated.

"Where did you see them? And did you hear them say anything, anything at all?"

Mami grinned inwardly to herself. She had the puppet master of the world on a string. "You stupid fool" she mentally laughed to herself.

"I believe I saw them headed in the direction of Tokyo-3's airport." She kept her voice puzzled and unsure. "The girl was saying something to the boy about how they were going to run away together after she had taken a liking to him or something to that effect, I don't know, I was on the other side of the road so I didn't hear too well. The last thing I managed to catch as they were going was how they were never going to come back to Tokyo-3 again. And that they were going to get on the first plane, err, to New York City. Yes, that was it."

"AND WHEN EXACTLY WAS THIS?" Gendo exclaimed as the veins on his forehead begun to bulge with worry.

"Well if I were to take a ballpark, I would say it must have been hours ago. I think. I've been here for a while now, so I've lost track of the time. I hope this helps you, sir."

"Erm. Yes. It. Does." The chief of NERV worriedly glanced at his watch. "Th, thank you. Miss Tomoe. Your information was most useful to my investigation."  
He turned to one of his guards.

"Give Miss Tomoe a gift for her cooperation."

Without hesitation, the tall unsmiling man reached briefly into his pocket before dipping out a one hundred yen note and placing it onto the table with the crystal ball on it.

"We must go now." Gendo quickly yelped as he began to quickly back away.

"Good luck with your search, sir." Mami said as she blew him a kiss while Homura did another hair flip and Madoka smiled innocently and waved him away. This would certainly fool them.

As they hurried away, she managed to hear the chief of NERV tell a guard to quickly run back to the headquarters and give the order to hold all ongoing flights immediately.

"Good luck with your search indeed" Mami evilly remarked when she saw that the chief and his guards were out of earshot. "You really will need it." To which Homura and Madoka grinned devilishly in reply.

"You really just couldn't resist a pretty face, could you dad?" Madoka quipped, briefly breaking character.

"Three pretty faces in fact" Homura sarcastically added.

But their victory celebration was brief as a sudden terrified crowing filled the air as a maddened flock of pigeons flew away in great fright.

Rushing hurriedly towards the three magical girls, was a completely exhausted Asuka Langley Soryu who even as she stopped in front of them to catch her breath, was wiping the sweat of her brow away with her sleeve.

Rei, Shinji and Mari had always wondered what their teammate would have looked like with short hair as part of the weird fantasies they all had as naïve children forced to grow up too quickly.

And now they had the answer.

Like an absolute sweetheart who looked as if she really could do no wrong while she spent her days engaged in the gratuitous charitable acts of petting kittens and pooling her money before a crowd of grateful, starving beggars.

So far from being relieved by this new appearance, Rei, dressed as Homura Akemi seemed immediately to immediately ignite as a match might ignite a puddle of gasoline.

With lightning speed, she undid the two braids in her hair letting it sink down to her waist in its full length. The crowd now assembling around them gasped.

She threw off her glasses, stepping on them with her shoes as without saying a word, she snatched Madoka's toy pistol she had won as a prize in addition to the cartload of sweets from her pocket, and pointed it at a still panting Asuka.

"Get lost, witch." She ordered, as the crowd around her watched the spectacle in dead silence. "Madoka doesn't need you here on her happiest day."

It was then and only then that the worn out Asuka slowly turned her face to meet the absolutely flabbergasted reactions of her three fellow pilots.  
As angry as all three of them still were with the atrocities she had committed during her life to all three of them in various ways, it was still shocking to see the red on her flushed face was the same as the red of her hair.

A tear rolled down her cheeks along with a painful hiccup, as she got as sick as a parrot, throwing up a gigantic puddle all over the asphalt.  
The acute symptoms of severe alcohol abuse.

One sip of Kaworu's vodka in a vapid attempt to quell her emotional turmoil had led to two. From there it had only spiralled into madness.

This wasn't your average everyday kind of sadness. This was, advanced sadness.

_In a lot of movies, there will always be a kind and friendly character who only wants to do good. However there always seems to be one or more bad character who treats them badly and unfairly, but still comes out on top every time. And the narrative still regards the bad character and toxic friend as a hero._

_Props once more to my reviewers for reviewing, especially to StraightedgeEpyon, fictionelement777 and Darkscythe Drake. Good luck in your stories too. You guys rock._

_So Gendo is gone. What will NERV do now in his absence?_


	24. Asuka's apology

**Chapter 24: Asuka's apology.**

The three EVA pilots stood in respectful silence as they switched off their voice modification bowties. As violent as they knew the fellow pilot standing in front of them to be, the evident pain in her panted breaths and the puddle of vodka she had uncontrollably thrown up, told them that what she had to say was serious.

Rei reluctantly looked at Shinji and Mari's worried faces, before reluctantly lowering the barrel of the toy gun she had been pointing at a heaving Asuka.  
She was an artificial homunculus, but she was not heartless.

Asuka Langley Soryu may have been a hothead who was not much of the thinking type, but she recognized Rei from the subtle inflections even in her modified voice and Shinji from the innocence in his childlike eyes in spite of his comic-con outfit. Mari. She just guessed that fellow pilots liked to hang together and that an extravagant show-off would want an equally extravagant costume.

"You need to come back to NERV. Right now," Asuka managed eventually to say in between gasps for air in a voice that was surprisingly emotionless considering her earlier state.

"It's an emergency. There's a massive Angel attack on the city and we need to go now. NOW!"

Mari shook her head. The long-awaited phrase "I'm sorry Shinji." Still hadn't come.  
Oh well.

"Why should we trust you, Asuka." Rei demanded, still angry even if she was secretly pitying of Asuka's distressed state. "We're taking a day off, and you come and interrupt it. Why don't you just do it yourself? After all, you do claim to have the best piloting skills."

"There's more than one Angel. And they're no ordinary angels. NERV has called all available pilots to action. I tried searching in our apartment, but you weren't there. This is the last place I thought I might find you all. Now we need to go, now."

"No. Asuka. You need to go." Snarled Rei venomously, throwing the toy pistol to the ground and raising a fist. "You've caused Shinji and me enough grief already."

"Rei, calm down." Mari suggested as Rei stopped to take a breath in anger. Even if she wasn't on the best of terms with the German redhead herself, she did acknowledge the need for teamwork and unity if they were to prevent the destruction of the world and their future.

"No. It should be clear to everyone here that Asuka is not to be trusted." Rei retorted as a crowd of costumed partygoers looked on at the spectacle with varied reactions. "You've done nothing but hit Shinji in the face repeatedly. He's nearly killed himself because of how badly you and Misato have treated him over the years."

Asuka did seem to stagger back a little as Rei continued her tirade of righteous fury.

"And are you even bothered?" Rei asked, spreading her arms out wide. "I think you've caused enough trouble as it is, and you need to leave Shinji alone."

"I, I didn't know, I was causing him so much grief." Asuka honestly admitted, looking at the ground.

"So then why do you think Shinji starts trembling every time you come near him, huh? Do you think he wants to make you angry with him? Shinji lived for you, Asuka, and you throw his kindness back in his face. You're just as bad as the Angels and even worse."  
By now Rei was gasping for breath herself. Years of being berated by the German redhead had finally broken her.

The crowd was looking disapprovingly at what was once the most popular pilot in NERV. It was clear that every last bit of their validation for Asuka had been shattered by Rei's speech.

"You may think you're some sort of saint Asuka." Rei concluded, causing the crowd to glare even more ferociously at a now trembling Asuka. "But the truth is, you probably did less damage when you were just an ordinary schoolgirl back in Germany."

Asuka looked down at the ground. She was not used to not being the one to take the lead in a confrontation.

"Rei, please" Mari raised a hand to which Rei scowled as she finally ended her ranting. Mari turned to look at her fellow pilot through sympathetic eyes.  
When it came to teenagers who had gone through a tough childhood in which it took the skin of their teeth to survive, it took one to know one.  
"Look Asuka. We don't hate you. We're angry at what you've done, but we still want to be your friends. We understand that you never had it easy growing up either. Shinji told me about it. But that doesn't excuse what you've done. So please, let me ask you why?"

"What?"

"Why did you do what you did Asuka? Why did you think it was a good idea to abuse Shinji all these years, when he hasn't done anything to you?"

"Err. Err" was all the usually confident German could bring herself to reply.

"Do you do it because you like seeing others in pain?"

"N, No. It's not like that." Asuka chocked out, as her throat began to seize up.

"Do you not like Shinji for some unknown reason you're not sharing with us? Did something he did to you, make you angry?"

"I never did anything to you Asuka." Shinji uncontrollably blurted out. "Never."

"It's not like that." Asuka insisted weakly as she held her hands in front of her face as if to try and defend herself from this cross examination. She swore she could hear Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice's music playing in the background again.

"Do you do it to feel more powerful?" Mari suggested sternly. "If that's the case, then I think it only makes you more pathetic. The fact that you feel the need to use violence to express yourself, clearly shows me you have no control over yourself. If you want to fight Asuka, there are enough Angels as it is for you to fight all you like. There's no need to take your needless violence on us. We're your friends, or at least, we want to be your friends. And even though we don't like what you've done, we're still more than willing to forgive you if you just stop doing these terrible things."

"Stop punching me Asuka. I don't deserve it. I really don't." Shinji pleaded. And to everyone's surprise, the young boy still dressed in the school uniform and pink hair of Madoka Kaname, began to shout as he punched himself.

He let out a bloodcurdling cry of a lifetime's worth of anguish as he punched himself again making both his fellow pilots and the crowd reel back in pain.  
Mari reached out a hand to stop him but he only stepped away as he looked at a now truly shocked and scared Asuka and held out his hands as if he were a starving beggar.

"Everything I did, I did to make you proud." He said through sobs and tears. "Tell me how proud you are Asuka. Tell me. TELL ME!" And then he began to wordlessly bawl as he hit himself for the third time as he dropped to his knees.

"Tell him Asuka. Confess" Ordered Rei seriously as Mari put a shoulder onto the hysterical Shinji. "If you even have a heart, that is."

Asuka took one more pained look at the knelt down, crying Shinji as he shook Mari away from him and gave himself yet another heavy punch to the head.  
He was doing her job of punching himself for her, and it hurt just to look.

Every punch he gave to himself, hurt her several times as hard as it hurt him. Self-inflicted beatdowns were the worst thing for anyone to have to watch. Even heartless Asuka had her limits.  
Rei was uncontrollably balling a fist when the redhaired pilot finally steadied herself enough to reply.

Her voice was the gentlest and most sincere it had been in her lifetime. Not even when she was talking to her own mother had she been this mild. As welcome a change as it was, it was very jarring.  
"I have." She started nervously. "I have always, been proud of you. From the first moment I set eyes on you Shinji, I had never been happier to know anyone. And when I watched you piloting your EVA despite how much you told me you hated piloting, it only made me prouder to call you my fellow pilot. And it was my own pride and ego, that made me selfish. I was unable to accept the fact that someone in this world could be so brave, so kind and so strong. And so, I took it all out on you. Like an idiot."

Asuka paused a moment to catch her breath as Shinji finally stopped hitting himself but did not look up to meet her eyes.

"I kept insisting to myself that I hated you for being better than me, Shinji. But the truth is, I really hated myself. I couldn't take the fact that there was always someone to upstage me, no matter where I went in life. My own mother ignored me. She chose a doll over me, her daughter. I was always nothing more than a second fiddle, always someone better than me to take all the credit. I,"

She paused for dramatic effect and to clear her clenched up throat. She was not used to accepting this kind of responsibility for her actions.

"I'm sorry."

"This isn't a competition Asuka." Mari explained as Shinji dabbed at his face with his sleeves. "I'm not here to compete with you over anything, and neither is Shinji and Rei. We don't want to take anything from you, Asuka. We want to be your friends so we can all have a good time even if our lives are hard.  
And as for being a pilot, we don't like it any more than you do. We only do it so that others won't have to. So that one day, we or at least the next generation can live in a peaceful world without Angels."

Mari looked at Shinji, Rei and Asuka and then the crowd of intently listening citizens of Tokyo-3.

"I'm scared as well, Shinji and Rei. And I know that you're scared too, Asuka. And like you, I too joined to please a person very dear to me, or rather two people. I do it for Shinji, who once saved my life when I was very young."

Asuka's put a hand over her mouth. Rei simply smiled knowingly. Mari had told her this story yesterday evening and it was one of the reasons she found it easy to accept that Shinji and Mari were now engaged.

"And for another friend of mine, Kaworu. When he sacrificed himself to becoming a pilot and left me behind, I got tired of waiting for him. And it was then that I made the decision to join NERV.  
Saving the world is important to me too, but without Shinji and Kaworu, I never would have had the push to do what I did. I understand you, Asuka."

"I never had a chance to tell my mum that I succeeded in becoming a pilot." Asuka whimpered. "It's not fair."

"Well for what it's worth Asuka. Congratulations on the great job you've done as a pilot. I salute you. Thank you for joining us, me, Shinji and Rei in our missions. We couldn't have succeeded without your help and skills. I know what it's like to lose your parents Asuka. I lost my mum before I was born and my dad before I was ten. And Shinji lost his mum when he was little too and now his dad more or less wants him dead over something, he had no control over. And the sooner I don't talk about Rei, the better. Join the club, Asuka. None of us here have our parents here to love us, but that doesn't mean we have to behave badly towards each other. We orphans should stick together. Because we're all we have." Mari's voice was neither cross nor mean, but completely respectful.

The crowd offered a quiet cheer. Such wisdom. Asuka began to regain a bit of her usual fire.

"I know it might not mean much to you. But I'm sure your mum would have been as proud as I am to see your piloting skills now. We still need your help if we're going to succeed in beating the Angels. We've worked well together so far, why not continue?" Mari continued in a solemn voice. "And once all this is over, we'll be heroes when we go free from NERV. And if we don't live to see that day, we can at least say we died trying. And that for me, is worth it. I for one, would rather go out in a bang of glory than go the quiet and boring way on a bed in a hospital."

"Don't you hate me for what I've done?" Asuka asked, turning to Shinji who she could deduce even through his costume. "Isn't that the reason you left me?"

"No, Asuka. When you're not punching me, I like you. I like that you're so expressive and passionate about everything. I like your brave face which you and you alone can muster." Shinji honestly confessed as Mari and Rei watched him proudly with no bearing of resentment. Forgiveness and the ability to find good qualities in not good people were two of the rarest and most valuable virtues. Shinji's niceness was not just a façade.

Asuka's eyes were beginning to widen as Shinji continued to sing her praises despite his clear resentment for her actions. "I like your hair. And the way you walk. I like everything about you Asuka, but when you keep scaring me, it makes it hard for me to tell you these things. And I really do want us to be good friends. I just, I just want you to be a little more understanding that it's not easy for me either. And to try and help me just a little. I know you can."

"And I want to not have to call child protective services and have you arrested." Rei added, only for Shinji himself to raise a hand in a gesture of peace for her to calm down.

"What we're saying is that you can still change. It's not too late. Just promise you won't make the same mistakes again and we can give you another chance." Shinji stated. "Please Asuka. Do it for me. Do it for all of us."

Asuka looked at them and they looked at her. This was the ultimatum. This was it. She just needed to accept their friendship, and everything would be okay.  
But friendship did not come easy to the mistreated girl who had been conditioned her entire life to believe that kindness was a weakness.

It was here that Mari dismissed the crowd of onlookers with a polite wave of her hand. This was a private matter between friends, and she would treat it with respect.  
"Please leave us in peace" Shinji ordered kindly.

"Asuka, you have no idea how important you are." Mari began to explain when the last of the crowd had dissipated leaving just the four of them on the asphalt beside the table with the crystal ball on it.  
"You have only begun to discover your true power. Join us. Me, Shinji and Rei, and I will complete your training. With our combined power, we can end this destructive conflict and bring balance (not order or chaos, balance) to the world."

"I'll never join you" shouted Asuka, suddenly regaining all of her usual fire. Even if she did regret her past actions against the people, she genuinely considered her equals and her friends, the idea of joining forces with a Mary Poppins look alike with such outlandish mannerisms was still too much for a self-respecting narcissist like her to bear.

"If you only knew the power of friendship." Mari simply continued, as if expecting Asuka to say exactly that. She turned briefly to Shinji and Rei who both gave an approving nod in perfect unison.  
Then she turned back to Asuka.

"NERV never told you what happened to your mother. Asuka."

"They told me enough" Asuka snapped back, her fury masking her surprise at this sudden turn of the conversation. "They told me she committed suicide after my dad had an affair with another woman, because it broke her."

"No." Mari corrected, her voice seeming to deepen several tones. "NERV killed your mother so that they could harvest her soul to be used in EVA unit 2. They made it look like a suicide to fool you because they saw the potential you had as a pilot. EVA unit 2, is your mother."

All of a sudden, the fiery passion which had briefly returned to Asuka was replaced with freezing misery. The light seemed to go out of her eyes as her jaw dropped in utter disbelief. She shook her head forcefully.

"No." she pleaded as her three fellow pilots watched on in strained but genuine sympathy. "No. That's not true. THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

"Search your feelings, you know it to be true." Rei nonchalantly insisted.

"No! NO!" Asuka uncontrollably shouted followed by a desperate gasp. It had hurt when she lost her reputation, but now she was losing her self-delusions too. She really had lost everything in her life.

"Asuka. You still have a chance to turn this around. You can still make your mum proud of the person you are." Shinji comfortingly insisted. "Join us. When we beat the Angels and make NERV a better place, we'll be celebrities. Everyone will love us for who we are and what we've been through. But we can't do it without your help Asuka. So please, if you have any sympathy whatsoever for the guy who cooked your meals, cleaned your room, massaged you when you were uncomfortable and sat at your bedside when you were sick, put aside your differences with me and join us."

Asuka's lips began to quaver tensely. It was as if she had something more to say but fear was still blocking her.

"You, me, Rei and Mari. Hanging out as good friends who care for one another. Eating good food, playing fun games and sharing good laughs together. Doesn't it sound good to you Asuka?" Shinji asked in complete sincerity.

Asuka begun to shake as another tear trickled from her left eye. Another display of weakness, but she no longer had the strength to wipe it away especially since she knew Shinji had seen it already.

"I forgive you Asuka. How could I not? You're just like me, like the rest of us. You too have lost someone very dear to you and had to grow up much more quickly than you would have liked. I understand what it's like and I sympathise. And that's why I'm begging you to stop bullying me. You know first-hand what it's like to be kicked around like rubbish and abandoned. I know you do. And that's why we need to work together. Once all this is over, we can go back to having normal lives as normal kids. I promise."

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Asuka did the unthinkable. She held out a trembling hand to a shyly smiling Shinji who despite a complete lack of social skills, knew to give it a delicate shake with his own nervous hand. He put his other hand on her shoulder as the friendly handshake continued, as Mari and Rei watched him with a whole new level of respect and admiration.

This was the mark of a true evangelist who knew when to forgive but not forget. An act godlier than the entirety of the life of Saint Paul and Jesus combined.  
Churches would have this simple, yet powerful embrace of affection printed into their stained glass windows for eons to come.  
It would become a verse in the bible, with an entire page dedicated to it alone.

This was true holiness and righteousness. Not the bunch of bull preached by NERV and SEELE about the coming of the end of times with no hope for anyone rejecting the "gift" of instrumentality.

It was Asuka who eventually broke the silence. She really had Shinji all wrong. He was the strong one, the bigger man who held no grudge and she was the whiny spoiled brat who had taken him for granted.  
She felt as if a gigantic burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt as if the world had already been fixed even though it hadn't.  
For the first time in forever, she felt alive. For this simple handshake had shown to her that kindness was no weakness. On the contrary, without kindness, there was no love.

And without love, there was no life.

"Shinji." She muttered gratefully, the sheer relief of this divine moment corrupting her language lobes once more as she kept hold of his hand. "Mein Freund. Mein beste Freund auf der welt."

"Shinji. My best friend in the world." Mari quietly translated to a confused Rei and Shinji.

Shinji simply nodded, equally grateful. It was only on special occasions when his German friend spoke in her mother tongue. It was good that she found this moment as special as he did.  
A moment where he could interact with her without fear of her fist. The first moment of its kind.

It was a few seconds later when the two pilots finally let go of each other's hands. Shinji's eyes were no longer filled with fears with he looked at Asuka, and her eyes were no longer full of disdain as she looked back.

"See Asuka. You're not a bad person. You just made some bad decisions." Shinji said. "We can still be friends. But just please, don't punch me like before."

Asuka's eyes begun to burn brightly once again as the next words she spoke were infused once more with the burning passion typical of her.  
"Before you declare me your friend, I want you to make me a promise as well. Can you do that for me, Shinji?"

"Anything" he curtly replied.

"Promise me that if I ever hit you or insult you like I used to do, that you'll beat me to death. Don't hold back. Don't forgive me. Don't try to justify my stupidity with sympathy, just hit me until you crack my skull to pieces. Promise me that, or we can't be friends."

Shinji didn't know how to react to this odd request. Mari and Rei simply beamed proudly.  
But he also knew that having gotten this far with Asuka, he couldn't just let her down now.

"I will keep that promise Asuka. But only because I know you would never do that anymore. I believe you've changed for the better and I trust your word."

"Well good." Snapped Asuka, remembering that she was on a mission and that the entire city was under threat from the massive army of behemoth abominations that the satellite imagery had sighted. They were still a few feet away when NERV ordered her to track down her remaining fellow pilots (they could send nobody due to limited manpower over the chaos caused by the chief's sudden departure and something about holding all flights from the airport). But a distant deep throated roar from far away had snapped all four pilots back to their senses.

"You need to come with me now. We don't have much time."

"We'll take my car." Mari immediately suggested as she began leading them in the direction of the parking lot as the shouts of panicking citizens rang through the air. She switched the voice setting on her bowtie back to the voice of Mami Tomoe as Shinji and Rei followed suit, Shinji dialling his voice to that of Madoka's and Rei to Homura's voice respectively.  
Even if there was an Angel attack, comic con day was not over yet.

"If you want, there's a spare costume in the car. It might not be perfect but if you want to celebrate what's left of comic-con day, the opportunity is there."

"Thanks Mari, I guess." Asuka belatedly replied in dogged gratitude as they reached the parking lot to find it empty save for Mari's blue SUV and begun to bundle into the car one by one, Shinji riding shotgun to Mari and Rei and her in the rear. "Don't any of you look while I get changed."

"We won't. We hope you like your outfit. Shinji had a feeling you might show up and he asked me to take it with us just in case."

Wow he cares, Asuka thought surprised. Even away from her, Shinji had been thinking enough about her to accommodate especially for her arrival. That took mindful empathy. Certainly not the actions of an idiot or a brat.

The blue SUV revved into life as Asuka grabbed the black skirt, yellow blouse and white shirt on her seat and begun to slip them on after slipping her school uniform off. The car was already nearly onto the main road by the time Asuka had gotten around to the nametag and green haired wig.

A moment later, and Asuka Langley Soryu had gone for the day.  
Her outfit now matched those of those chosen by her fellow pilots for this special day. A choice certain to symbolize unity between tightly knit friends who would stick with each other through thick and thin.  
Her hair was now longer, though not as long as her old hair prior to her haircut and a beautiful shade of jade green.

Her nametag read. "Hitomi Shizuki. New but not less."  
Her voice setting: Spunky and loving with a sweet, sweet heart.

Her entire life had been all a big lie. It felt nice to be nice to others for a change, niceness couldn't possibly be a weakness if it felt so good doing it.  
The people around her were no longer just the fellow pilots she was forced to be in constant contact with as part of her loathsome job she only took in a hopeless attempt to gain herself reputation. They were now her friends who would protect her while she protected them till the cold and bitter end when every star fell from the sky and every last heart in the world broke.

When every ship was going down, she would care nothing and keep smiling through it all when they were there to tell her through her tears and her screams.

It was going to be okay.

"Shinji." Hitomi said, taking a look in the direction of the pink haired girl in the front seat.

"Rei" she whispered, turning her eyes sideways to the long dark-haired girl sitting beside her, who was just starting to get her braids back on.

"Mari" She took a look at the blonde spiral hair tails of the driver whose attention was totally focused on the road.

"Thank you. All of you. For being there for me when it mattered. You really are all amazing people, all of you. The greatest honour I ever earned in NERV, was being able to fight alongside all of you. And from now on, we're all in this, together. I'm truly glad to have met you all. My friends."

…

"Come on Homura. Do it. Show that uncaring jerk how wrong she is and how right you are" Misato shouted as the onscreen dark haired girl fought the onscreen blonde.

The fighting was fierce and even though she knew it was just a film, Misato was praying with every ounce of her being for "Homura" to come out victorious.

It was when the fighting had reached its halfway point, that Misato came to a tragic and self-realizing discovery which made her slap herself in the face.

Homura was an allegory for her mistreated son and pilot Shinji who no one listened to or acknowledged, and Mami, the girl Homura was forced to fight against was an allegory for her, Asuka and the other sadists he was forced to be in constant contact with, who took glee in his suffering and his misery while deriding him despite the fact he was their victim.

"I'll punish you forcefully. I'll punish you brutally. I'll make you regret every beating you ever gave to my son and you will regret the day you were born." Misato vowed, addressing no one in particular but rather the collection of jerk assess that made up NERV.

"Woah. I'm not sure we need to go quite that far. But I'm glad you see why things need to change for our Shinji if we're going to save the world." Maya dressed as Sayaka with blue hair, congratulated as Misato continued to watch with her eyes glued to the screen and her bag of popcorn untouched since the film began.

She was slowly showing Misato the error of her ways, through example.

_A bit of a long update but thank you all for reviewing and reading. Please keep the reviews coming if you can and tell me what ya'll think. But until then, thank you all for being so awesome.  
I let Asuka go a little easy. Well, considering what was in the series, do you want more unpleasant to be added to the pile? Or do you want to see friends cooperating and working together as friends should?  
I like to think of this story as a rebuild of the rebuild of Evangelion. Where the characters get even more of a second chance than they already did. What the series would be if Studio Ghibli wrote it to be lighter and softer while still keeping its overall tone intact._


	25. A link to the past Hope for the future

**Chapter 25: A link to the past. A hope for the future. **

_The outfits chosen by each main cast for comic-con day was designed to reflect their personas. Madoka is another universe full of mentally unstable kids forced to fight tooth and nail everyday to survive without so much as a thank you from the people they save._

_Shinji = Madoka: Both of them have practically no self-esteem. Both are selfless yet unwilling to take action to the extent that their selflessness damages their friends rather than helping anyone.  
__Both want to please everyone yet end up please no one because of how little they are able to do.  
Despite this, they are the only people in their respective universes that everyone likes to an extent since they are the only ones among their group that can be described as anywhere close to "nice and kind". And because of this, they serve as a uniting figure that is the only thing holding their group of friends together, as well as encouraging everyone else to be better even if they cannot do much themselves._

_Rei = Homura: Was once a nihilist who wanted the world's destruction. With Shinji/Madoka's help they slowly found purpose and reason to try and save the world instead.  
Homura even ended up becoming the most reasonable of the bunch after Madoka and everyone else went off the deep end._

_Mari= Mami: Once an antisocial introvert, who became more brash and confident after the timely intervention of a good, good friend in Shinji/Madoka. She appears far more sane and confident than the rest of the cast but deep down hides her own tragic past._

_Ritsuko = Kyoko: Aside from Madoka and later Homura after Madoka went off the deep end, Kyoko was the most sensible member of the cast and the only one who tried to take Homura's advice seriously.  
Both are also tomboys with a crush on another female member of the cast. _

_Maya = Sayaka: Self-explanatory. Two kind and fun-loving tomboys who easily fall into despair._

_Asuka = Hitomi: For the longest time, both characters served as little more than a hinderance to the main characters because of selfishness and the refusal to simply admit they had problems so that they could be dealt with. Asuka refused to admit she had still not gotten over the loss of her mother and Hitomi refused to admit she was incredibly lonely and that the loneliness was consuming her inside out.  
Both however had the potential to become good and helpful people if they became less needy and confessed their problems so that they could be helped by their friends. Though in Hitomi's case, it was Madoka and the other's fault for refusing to open up to her as well while in Asuka's case, it was more her own fault._

"Shinji?"

"Yes, Asuka" replied the boy in question in his normal voice, knowing when to be serious. He was sitting in the front seat, riding shotgun next to Mari while Asuka sat in the backseat next to Rei who was looking at her with a bizarrely friendly expression, seemingly completely ignorant to how she had been almost as badly mistreated by the red-haired German over the years as Shinji.

"Thank you. For everything you've done for me over the years. For being so nice to me even when I was so mean to you. For cooking my meals and being the only one to sit at my bedside when I wasn't well. I know I didn't say it before, but I just want you to know that it all meant a lot to me."

"I was just trying to be nice. It's nothing really." Shinji bashfully replied, still not used to this kind of compliment from his roommate.  
Each word sounded like music to his ears. Receiving compliments from Mari and Rei felt great, but to actually receive validation from the roommate who had until today shown him nothing but scorn despite his efforts, he was not sure he could take so much positivity.

"No Shinji. I mean it. Stop not taking credit for your accomplishments. That's another thing your going to have to promise me if we're going to be friends from now on. You've done absolutely amazing things and its time you start accepting the fact that you are an amazing person."

"Well. I'll try…" It would take a while for him to drop the negative self-image he'd spent his entire life building after being made the lead scapegoat by everyone he was forced to be in constant contact with.  
But for the sake of maintaining his and Asuka's finally improving relationship, he was prepared to risk all.  
And if it meant that he could see himself in a better light while making these commitments, so much the better. "I'm glad you appreciate my efforts. Asuka. I would do anything for you."

"Now that's more like it. That's my teammate."

"And Asuka… I'd like you to promise me something now, if you don't mind." Slowly but surely, not being called an idiot or being punched in the face was granting Shinji more courage and willpower than he had before. It was time he voiced his first request for her for a change. For her sake as much as his.

"Anything, Shinji."

"Don't keep your problems to yourself, Asuka. If you have something that upsets you or hurts you or makes you feel like life's not worth living anymore then bring it to us. We're your friends Asuka. And we care about you. We'll help you get through it, no matter how bad it seems. It's alright. It's not a weakness to ask for help."

"Admission is the first step to recovery." Mari helpfully pitched in as she kept her eyes fixed intently on the road as another explosion sounded in the distance.

Asuka grinned wistfully, with a little hint of playful humiliation. "Well in my case. Denial was. But it won't be any longer."

"That's good" continued Mari as their car passed under a dark tunnel filled with neon lights. "Because, I have a suggestion that I know will help all of us."

"What is it?" asked Rei, finally putting in her first word in this conversation.

"It's a place built not long ago to help EVA pilots like us in particular to cope with the stresses of our difficult lives." Mari explained. "It was built and founded by wealthy humanitarians with the intent of improving the declining quality of piloting that NERV has began to see a drop in, as well as in response to the increased awareness some members of the public have begun to develop for how tough life has been on us. It's a very effective sounding program, and because we are pilots, it won't cost us a yen."

"I mean, what does it do?" Rei rephrased, with affected interest.

"It's a service called counsellors corner. It provides 24-hour therapy with a licensed therapist for us to share all our problems with. To be quite honest, I should have mentioned it long ago."

"It sounds good." Shinji happily exclaimed.

"I don't need a shrink. I'm perfectly fine." Retorted Asuka defiantly.

"You are clearly not fine, Asuka." Shinji firmly replied with concern. "And neither am I. Neither is Rei or Mari after all we've been through. This is something we should have done a long time ago, Asuka. And you already promised that you would start being more open with your problems. Keeping them hidden isn't going to do you, or any of us any good. This service will help you. It will help us."

"I'm not going" insisted the reformed but not tamed redhead.

"Do it as a favour for us, for your friends. We are friends now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well Asuka. This is what friends do for each other. Please. This is for your own good as much as ours."

Asuka scowled as she sat for a few moments while the car made its way out of the tunnel so that NERV's headquarters were now in sight. Her childhood trauma involving her parents had given her a very pessimistic view on any kind of doctor and therapist.  
But as that other idiot Kaworu had put it, the past was done.

And as crazy and ridiculous as Mari's mannerisms sometimes seemed, her eyes did contain a kind of cleverness that even Asuka had no choice but to admire, whether she wanted to admit it or not.  
And if the others thought this was a good idea, then as their friend she really had no choice in the matter. Asuka did not declare her friendships lightly but when she did, she stuck by them steadfastly.

"Fine. I'll do it."

"Great." Mari answered as she drove the car down to an underground parking lot next to NERV's main building. "After this battle is over. I'll take us there. I know where it is, and it's walk in. No need for appointments."

"Sounds like a plan." Shinji responded as the car stopped in a vacant area and the four pilots got out.  
This would be just one more incentive he had for winning this battle.

He now had a wife, friends and a warm and welcoming home to return to. And now he would finally get therapy for his traumas along with his friends. He needed to win. He needed to win by a landslide. He needed to win so hard that the Angels would wish they had never come.

They raced out of the underground passage and through the main doors as the ground shook beneath their feet. But for once in his life, Shinji Ikari was not afraid.

He looked bravely at his fellow pilots, now his friends and they looked at him.  
"We have a secret weapon, Angels." He whispered as they were let through by security and they ran for the briefing room with Mari taking point. "It's called friendship."

As corny as that sounded, he knew it just had to be said.

The last thing he had the chance to ask Mari as they stood in the elevator going down to where they would board their EVA's was:  
"How do you know about this?"

Mari grinned. She was glad she had a chance to tell her fellow pilots what she was going to tell them now.

"Dr Akagi told me about it. In fact, a lot of what I know, doctor Akagi told me. She has a lot of the answers you might want, and if you ask her nicely, I'm sure she'd be happy to answer any questions you have."

Mari tilted her head slightly in satisfaction.

"She isn't quite as loyal to Gendo as you all might think. Go to her. She knows a lot of things that even I don't know."

Shinji, Rei and Asuka all cracked a smile as the lift doors opened and they entered the underground room they would be briefed briefly about their mission inside. They were all one step closer to finding the answers they so badly craved now.

…

Gendo Ikari was seething with unadulterated fury as he arrived in Tokyo-3's airport to learn from the security guard that no Shinji Ikari nor Rei Ayanami could be found anywhere within the complex.

It was here where the madness festering in his mind since the day he lost his wife, broke loose and he came upon a completely crazed and insipid conclusion which would make even a lobotomised cyborg with no brain shake its head.

"Shinji always said that if he had an opportunity to go wherever he wanted, he would go to new York because it was the city of liberty in the world." He reasoned to himself. "And Rei's been casting some extremely suggestive gestures towards my cowardly son as of late, almost as if, she cares for his wellbeing."

His fragmented mind immediately jumped upon this train of thought without further consideration. It tried at the last moment to rethink but the attractive image of three extremely sexy young women one of whom blew him a kiss and another who's hair flips put the two Akagi's meagre charms to shame, confounded him utterly.

As far as he was concerned, that Mami Tomoe woman he had spoken to could be nothing less than one hundred percent truthful.

"Shinji and Rei fled the country" he guessed whereupon he begun to tear at his rapidly reddening face as smoke billowed out of his ears. It explained everything. From how he had found a few notes less in his money vault, to how much happier his Rei seemed to become around his son.

He grabbed the security guard who had checked the cameras for him, by the sleeve.

"Get me and a group of my guards, on a private supersonic jet to New York city, this instant. Or I will kill you." he ordered in a soft but dangerous snake like hiss whereupon the young and skinny man quickly nodded and leapt to obey without question.

He turned to his guards.

"You are going to accompany me to New York city and we are going to find my son and my Rei."

"Sir yes sir" was the unanimous reply as they touched their brows in salute, each of them secretly wishing they could just open fire and wipe the bastard of a commander out this instant.

As he walked in the direction of the VIP boarding area, he begun to tremble all over as sweat covered his body and his eyes went cold.

Without Rei's soul, he couldn't resurrect his wife Yui. And if Shinji got the word of NERV's atrocities out to the world, then his life of luxury and excess was finished.  
Of course he didn't expect anyone to believe a pipsqueak as insignificant and useless as his silly little runt of a son, but he couldn't take chances.  
As much as he hated to admit it, his son was his son. And he was NERV's chief. And a nasty tradition that had lasted till the modern day was that the chieftain's child, the king's prince and the president's offspring were generally taken very seriously in their opinions, being seen often as the second in command without a spoken rule.

The terrible image of being forced to eat cold instant noodles on a kerb on the sidewalk while cold rain soaked him to the bone, without his wife Yui made him gnash his teeth like an animal.

The idea of his workers being given better paycheques and moving into better apartments with proper running water and electricity made his blood boil.  
Even the mental picture of countless beggars in rags being let out of the slave pens with their chains removed and cheering, caused the hairs on his neck to stand on end as his blood vessels bulged.  
Gendo Ikari was suffering a hypertension attack.

The slave trade ended once because of human weakness and he was not about to have it end again on his watch. He would not see the totalitarianism he had dedicated his life to building through intimidating others, give way to democracy. He would be the dictator of the world till the end. The only dictator.

"You can run, Rei and Shinji." He sneered to himself as he came within view of the large and luxurious jet that would take him and his guards halfway around the world. "You can run but you can't hide. Not from me."

…

"And so, the Angels must be stopped at any cost before further damage is caused to the city." Ritsuko Akagi dressed in the purple pink hair and school uniform of Kyoko along with her signature labcoat, quickly explained after a very short yet still very redundant explanation on how much damage the terrifying monsters had already caused and how close they were now to entering the city interior.

The area closest to the Angels had been successfully evacuated but if they got further, there would be little escape.

"We can do this." Crowed Shinji with more enthusiasm than he usually exhibited in a year of his life.  
"We'll teach those monsters a lesson of what happens when they pick the wrong city to attack."

Ritsuko smiled. It warmed her heart to see the mistreated introverted son of the most cruel and evil man on Earth act so positively and come out of his shell.

"Not bad, soldier. Not bad. Let's see you put those words into action. Pilots. To your EVA's." barked Ritsuko proudly, quite enjoying her temporary role as the acting Major for the day.  
NERV figured that with Gendo gone, Maya fired and Misato missing, who better than Misato's closest friend to take her place. A rational and not drunk scientist who was also about to kick the habit of smoking for good too. A completely clear mind to read the battlefield like the pages of a book.

"Yes ma'am." The pilots all replied, equally proud to be led by someone of her calibre and respectability. A hard-working woman to take the place of the lazy bum they had all in their own ways gotten a bit tired off.

"Good luck" Ritsuko called after them as they ran for their respective hangars with no more concern despite the evident danger of their situation, than if they were late for lunch.

"Please don't die" she prayed to herself when they had all left the room. It was fun to act as a drill instructor when it was safe, but the idea that one of the pilots who were no more than young teenagers might never come back alive, was horrifying to say the least.

They were all so innocent. Even Asuka and especially Rei, who Ritsuko had spent a lot of her life mistreating in the same way Asuka and Misato had mishandled Shinji.

Oh Rei.

Shinji felt no fear as he ran down the dark corridor, into the large room where EVA unit 1, his EVA was kept. He now knew or at least hoped that when he fought in that giant "robot", his mum would be somewhere in there watching over him, guiding him. Mother and son were saving the world in unison. He was spending quality time with his good parent, even if that time was spent fighting dangerous battles against world destroying monsters.

"Shinji get in the f*cking robot" he heard the combined voices of everyone he knew shout to him once again. But this time, these words encouraged him onward rather than holding him back. They were his friends now, or at least the other EVA pilots were.

"Oh, I will." He replied, with a level of confidence that would have made an Asuka on her better days impressed as he slipped on his plug suit like a fashion icon slipped on their costume. "I'll get in that robot and kick massive ass. You all owe me your lives for the amazing things I've done and am about to do."

And as he climbed into the cabin of the purple and green EVA that was EVA unit 1 and the connectors linked his body and nerves with it, a frail and melodious voice sounded quietly.  
It spoke not to his ears but to his very soul. He knew no-one else could hear it, but he knew it was real. Somehow, he and he alone could understand the short but no less powerful message being radiated by EVA unit 1 to him now as it finished loading up its final functions.

"My dear son." It said in what he knew to be a woman's voice despite its blurriness. "I'm so proud of you. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me the most but know that I'm here and always watching. Do your best, Shinji. Son. I know you can do it."

And before Shinji could bring himself to reply, the telepathic message faded and EVA unit 1 was silent once more.

"Son…" he muttered in wistful nostalgia as he guided his EVA out of the hangar and into the city.

He smiled sadly, but gratefully.

"Now that's a name I have not heard in a long time. A long time."

Mari told the truth. His mum was not gone completely after all. And now he had another reason he had to ensure the world survived and he along with it.

"For my wife, my friends and the wonderful world I live in" he cried as he finally made it outside to see the three Angels already beginning to devastate the city.

"First I'll save the world and my friends. Then I'll come back for you, mum. Hang in there a little longer."

…

Asuka was unusually tense as she went through the usual procedures, she must have been through a thousand times by now.

She was about to go on a high-risk mission where the chances of coming back alive made the average lottery player look lucky in comparison.  
Three Angels at once. Three times the usual risk, and usually for the red-haired daredevil, three times the usual fun.

Piloting was nothing new for her. She had controlled her EVA in all the tests when it was first built.  
In school back in Germany when she played dodgeball, she was always first to rush to the front of her side of the court willing to risk all in the hopes of improving her chances of a hit. She never hung back in pelting as many balls at the opposition as she could with full force, knowing full well that a single poorly made throw would result in her elimination from the game.

She left herself completely unguarded as she did this, not at all fearing the pain that taking a dodgeball to herself could and would leave her with.

It made her the player to knock the most opponents off the court, and the player always first to be knocked out herself. She had a score of bruises to prove this point if she had to.

It was much the same tactic she used in NERV. Risk was nothing new to her.  
No risk, no reward as she liked to put it when lecturing Shinji and Rei about their more conservative approach to every battle, preferring to stay in the back row at least until the Angels were nearly upon them.

Yet today, something was different.

Today she felt honestly afraid of the prospect of such a tough fight against a superior opponent. Usually she, Shinji and Rei would be working together to tackle just one Angel but now there were three.

For once she was glad that Mari's able performance had given her a line in Toyko-3's newspaper which usually didn't care squat about a bunch of children told to risk their lives for the amusement of others. She was grateful for such expertise and timely intervention of another pilot in their team, who had indeed made her time in NERV easier since she was now given less missions and additional support in the missions she was forced to undertake.

Yesterday she would have been cursing the news that she, Shinji and Rei could expect less missions and an easier time fighting the Angels with the addition of Mari, the fourth child to their team.

Today she was relishing it.

She needed to win this battle. But she needed to come back alive as well.  
She still had to demonstrate to Shinji and Rei that she really had changed and didn't just say she had.

And they still had to have that amazing hangout Kaworu said they should when their differences had finally been put aside.  
Yesterday she would have been calling that grey haired Russian insane.  
Today she was calling him, absolutely brilliant.

Her EVA begun to beep as it came to life with its pilot linked to it.  
Lights came on and to try and allay her fears as a few more beeps sounded, Asuka began to sing the childhood song her mother once used to put her to sleep when she still cared for her daughter, and life was still simple and straightforward.

"_When I was just a little girl. I asked my mother, what will I be?_" She sang in an unusually gentle and soothing voice not typical of a gritty jock as she slowly guided her now fully booted up EVA for the exit that would take her above ground to join Shinji and the other pilots.

"_Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to me._" It was this line she stopped at as a tiny tear rolled down her cheeks through the visor of her red plug suit. It had been so long since her mother sang to her anymore that she had forgotten the rest.  
She was sure that it was an incredibly lovely song, but she couldn't even remember all the lyrics with how young she had been when she had been all but abandoned by her own mother to fend for herself.

If only she could finish her childhood bedtime song. Then she might stop shaking so intensely and be able to actually focus on the battle enough to have the faintest hope of winning it. She tried her hardest but a faint cold fear which almost froze up the heat of life had penetrated the marrow of her bones and she felt her blood freezing like ice. She didn't even remember what her mother had said to her when she still loved her like a daughter. And she was about to enter into a death trap she might very well die in. How unfair.

"_Que sera, sera."_ A warm and motherly voice echoed through her very soul as her teeth clattered so hard she felt they might break. _"Whatever will be, will be."_

"Mother?" Asuka managed to ask despite the intense shock at such a beautiful, tender sound which to her sounded like nothing less than a little slice of heaven.

"_The future's not ours to see." _the sweet singing of EVA unit 2 slowly continued, showing without showing that it had acknowledged the girl's acknowledgement of its true identity.

"_Que sera, sera" _Asuka and her mother trapped in the EVA finished the song in perfect unison, the first words they had shared since a time too long to count. Like two members of a choir singing their last line together to signify the ending of a performance as the curtain fell.

Asuka waited a few more seconds as yet another tear trickled out of her other eye, the one that had not yet cried. Only this time, the tear trail it left made her feel pleasant and warm inside.  
This was a tear of joy. Joy at finally realizing that her accomplishments she had worked tirelessly all her life for, had not gone unnoticed after all.  
Joy that in the years she felt like the whole world was against her, she had never really been alone after all.

This EVA cabin was now the most angelic place on Earth for her now. And though she knew she couldn't stay here forever, she would be sure to give each and every moment she had in it, the proper respect it deserved. Her trembling stopped and colour returned to her as the heat of life came back into her as the sound of crumbling rubble sounded in the distance. She had found her inner peace.

"_What will be, will be." _Asuka ended the song alone with. She knew it wasn't a line originally present in the lullaby that put the young her to sleep, but it felt right to add it here now that she was older and had seen what she had seen. And as a final reassurance to herself that whether the ensuing battle went well for her or not, now she had no regrets. Sometimes things in life just happened, and so long as you could say you did the very best you could to yourself, it wasn't your fault.

The ugly face of the largest Angel turned to face her with a low and savage growl.

_"La, la, la, la, la" _She simply replied with still in song as she gripped the controls more tightly as she waited for Shinji ,Rei and Mari's EVA's to come within view, neither afraid nor angry in the final seconds before the start of the battle, knowing what she knew now.

…

As Rei took in her first sights of the carnage which made her gag from within her white plug suit in her aptly named EVA unit zero, she suddenly felt gripped by an unexplained feeling of desperation and rapidly fading hope.

As this sensation, a twisted mixture of unbearable and euphoric strengthened itself, Rei felt an oddly familiar presence in the air around her.  
A presence too alien to be treated as an acquaintance and yet too familiar to be a complete stranger.

As her books would have put it, a Déjà vu.

Then the whispering began. It was too quiet for Rei to truly discern what was being said, but she could tell that the speaker was crying as they spoke as if every word was draining what little soul and spirit of the speaker remained.

There it was again. This time it was just loud enough that Rei could only just make out what was being said but only just.

"S, sorry. Rei. I'm S, sorry." The invisible presence pleaded as Rei felt a terrible pain in her neck. This moment was triggering a repressed memory from one of her past lives in a previous body.

"I didn't mean, I didn't mean to hurt you. I truly regret what I did to you Rei. I do. Really I do. Gendo, wasn't even worth it."

And then the pain in Rei's neck subsided as she felt a pain in her head instead.  
She nearly screamed as the memory of a brown haired scientist with the same eyes and outfit as Dr Akagi strangling a blue haired girl remorselessly to death came back to her, now as clear as a whistle.

It was ironically not anger that Rei felt as the rest of the memory slowly begun to return to her despite the brutal way her previous body had been murdered, but pity.  
Pity she could now feel with her extended range of emotions, made possible only through Shinji's repeated kindness toward her and his ability to forgive his violent roommate Asuka when Rei herself could not.

"I didn't mean to call you an old hag. I'm sorry too. Dr Akagi." Rei apologized in return. If Shinji could find it in his heart to forgive, then she could at least try. This was also part of being fully human. "I was, I was very angry from the commander's insults that day and I let my emotions (which unfortunately were very basic back then) get the better of me. Please forgive me too, Dr Akagi. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

Rei referred not to the current blonde-haired woman now running NERV's remaining scientific division after it had converted itself to an arms corporation from a peaceful laboratory.

Rather she referred to the by now almost forgotten Naoko Akagi who not even Gendo brought up in conversation very much anymore despite being the inventor of most of NERV's digital firewalls that even her daughter couldn't get through, and being the scientist who originally created the Rei clones one of which would eventually become the one Rei with a soul that Shinji would come to love and care for in spite of her artificiality.

"We're not replaceable Doctor. Neither of us are." Rei continued when she heard nothing but quiet weeping. "We're both human. And that makes us both unique and special in our own ways."

A massive roar rocked the city as the metallic noise of metal clanging against concrete begun to grow louder with every step EVA unit 0 took towards the battlefield.

Asuka, Shinji and Mari would be here any second now. Good.

"Please, I beg of you. Protect my daughter Ritsuko." The soul of the dead scientist wept, its voice getting weaker and less coherent with each syllable. "She's still a child even if she has grown up. Please, do what I as her mother could never do for her. She needs you, Rei."

"Tell…her…I…love…her" the final words spoken in a clipped, robotic static as EVA unit 0 let out a few weak beeps.

"I will, doctor." Rei promised as she got herself into position, patiently waiting for the moment when all of her fellow pilots were poised and ready for a strike.  
"And when all this is over, I'll come back to save you so you can be with her again and tell her that yourself."

Part of being human was being thankful. And despite her bitterness, Rei was very grateful to the previous doctor Akagi for creating her into existence.

She was the closest thing Rei had to a parent; all things considered.

Rei was just glad to know that there were no hard feelings between them now. She couldn't have linked with her EVA if there were.

She paused for a moment as she pulled one of her EVA's metallic fists back for its first punch.

"And doctor. Please stop thinking of me as Yui Ikari. I'm not Yui. I'm Rei. Rei Ayanami. Just because we share the same genes, doesn't make us the same people. And you of all people should know that."

…

Mari's Evangelion joined the other Evangelions from an angle that put her behind the three Angels while they stood in front of them.

She had once again switched back to the green and white plug-suit she got the day she started in NERV after it had been successfully repaired.  
Pink really wasn't her colour. It was simply the only thing available because of how cheap NERV was even to its pilots.

She dashed her EVA forward and gave the largest of the Angel's a kick to its shin.

And then it was on.

Kind of ironic that she was a Briton while Shinji and Rei were Japs and Asuka was a German.

It was like World War 2 except backwards with everyone working together. World peace 3?

Was the world finally going to learn from its mistakes of the past so that it resolved them instead of repeating them?

_The second EVA vs Angel fight is on.  
I was always of the mind that the soul inside EVA unit 0 has to be Naoko Akagi.  
It makes perfect sense when you consider that NERV puts everyone who commits suicide into an EVA because of short supply of souls. (I mean who would willingly sacrifice themselves to be trapped in what amounts to a purgatory where their soul has to suffer eternal torment unable to even completely die)_

_And you consider that just as Yui and Kyoko (Asuka's mother) have loved ones who are the only ones who can pilot their EVA (Only Shinji can pilot Unit 1 and only Asuka can pilot Unit 2) this makes even more sense.  
My theory is that only those with a very strong and loving connection to someone can have their souls placed into an EVA and still be kept alive._

_Naoko Akagi still has her daughter, Ritsuko so it matches with how Shinji and Asuka's mum's love their children and wanted to stay with them forever.  
And it stands to reason that after a few decades spent reflecting over her actions, she would actually regret what she did to Rei and allow Rei to pilot her EVA, as penance._

_But until then, thank you all so much for reading and reviewing.  
Please leave a review or favourite if you want to support me and hopefully I'll see you guys in the next chapter or another story._

_Thanks for being so awesome. _


	26. Attack on Angel act 2

**Chapter 26: Attack on Angel 2: NEVER jet alone and here's why. **

Mari's kick was enough to throw the largest of the Angels off kilter and the remaining two Angels immediately turned to attack her EVA which quickly backpedalled away, completely ignoring the other three EVA's which quickly rushed in to capitalize on their carelessness.

Shinji and Rei took on the larger of the two still upright Angels, a white monster with a black cross symbol imprinted on its chest. Hah, as if that made it any more endearing to the humans who it terrorized.

After a long and hard fought struggle where both their EVA's suffered several scrapes but fortunately nothing serious, Shinji gripped its arms, pinning them behind its back while Rei punched it hard in the jaw.

Blood sprayed from its mouth as it managed to shake itself free of EVA unit 1 and tried to pounce but before it could land upon the dazed purple EVA which had been knocked reeling, Rei kicked it with astounding force in the back and sent it hurtling into a nearby building causing a large stack of rubble to collapse onto its head.

Usually such a feat would not have been possible for either of them alone, but together they knew just what to do. Their synchronization was perfect with each other on the battlefield, even if not so much in real life situations. As much as Shinji wanted his terrible job as a pilot to end, he did harbour a morbid desire that he and Rei would get to work together one more time before that happened.

Watching her control, the biomechanical war machine like it was nobody's business, was like seeing the most graceful dancer. The sight gave him a kind of satisfaction that very few things could. It was as if shy and reclusive Rei became a different person in her EVA.  
A wonderful role reversal where she was the confident one for a change.

…

Asuka and Mari were having less luck. Though their Angel was a slightly smaller, red beast with a bulging stomach and only one eye still intact, it was putting up one heck of a fight as it dodged between all the punches and kicks that they were throwing at in unison.

"Behind you, Asuka." Mari called from the microphone which linked her to Asuka's EVA allowing Asuka to move out of the way just in time of a powerful lunge.

"This isn't working." Mari remarked as she sidestepped the red behemoths surprisingly fast and precise punches with no time to land a strike of her own, only for the Angel to jump away when Asuka attempted to hit it once more from behind. "And we can't keep this up much longer."

"Gar nichts klappt hier" Asuka cried in reply as she tried and failed to parry one of the Angel's powerful rakes to her EVA's hull, causing electricity to surge out of the cut area in a brilliant spark.

"Keep it distracted. I'll try and get behind it again. Make it look like you're wearing out and giving it openings. That'll fool it."

Asuka could not help but nod in grim admiration of this good advice, spoken in such a cool and level headed voice in the face of deadly danger. Perhaps she should have started giving this newbie pilot a bit more credit after all.

The next seconds were spent in a game of wits between human and abomination as Asuka grudgingly took Mari's advice by slowly taking steps back, occasionally trying to land a light jab or a sweep, staying a reasonable distance so that most if not all of the Angel's counterattacks hit only air while appearing as if she was still trying to take it down. She needed it to be completely focused on her.

"Anytime now, Mari." She impatiently said as she was too slow to evade another one of the Angel's scratches, causing her EVA to beep as fluid began to leak from a cut on it. This wasn't good.

She had never been more grateful than today to not have to fight alone. Kaworu was right. Those who fought alone, did die alone.  
And even if she died this very day, she could take comfort in the fact that it would be in the company of her three best and only friends that she regarded as equals in this messed up world full of messed up stupidity. And that to her, was worth more than anything.

As one light after another begun to dim as her vision went dark, the Angel that was raising its feet up for a finishing stomp was quickly pulled away by Mari's EVA as she slammed it to the ground, and they began struggling.

"Finish it!" Mari shouted as she managed for a brief moment to get the Angel in a pressed down position where it could not move but was still thrashing violently like an out of control maniac.

It was all she needed to say.

With the last of its power, Evangelion unit 2 and its pilot, mother and daughter acting as one in complete harmony gave the EVA the final kick it needed to completely immobilize it long enough for Mari to control her EVA to bite down on its neck as it continued to thrash about.  
It was her preferred way of finishing off her Angels since she had studied in her spare time that their weak points were on the neck where their protective layer of skin was much thinner.

Both girls began to sigh in relief only for their victory to quickly die down as the largest purple Angel that both of them had all but forgotten about stood towering over them. They had forgotten about it.

"NEIN, NEIN, NEIN. ICH WILL NICHT TOTEN." Asuka screeched at the top of her lungs as she mashed the keys and switches in the cabin of her rapidly dying EVA to no avail.

"Mutti" She sobbed, not realizing that her intercom was still connected with Mari. "Es tut mir lied. Ich versuche eine gute madchen zu sein."

"Mummy, I'm sorry. I tried to be a good girl." Mari translated, not at all worried in this moment having spotted a blur of grey from out of the corner of her eyes a moment ago and hearing the sound of metal clanging against stone getting louder and louder.  
"I knew it. You're not heartless after all Asuka and there is still a chance for you."

Kind of ironic how different Shinj and Asuka seemed on the outside and how similar to each other they really were on the inside. Both missed their mum's and were in turn missed by them.  
Had they but shared these feelings with each other long ago, a lot of emotional turmoil could have been avoided. But it was not too late now.

Mari was glad that the duo could put aside their differences despite all the friction they had undergone over the years. Just another reason why Shinji's kindness was the most powerful weapon in the world.  
It would have been all too easy for him to return Asuka's cruelty with his own and refuse to have anything to do with her, but he didn't.  
Once again, these were not the actions of a coward or a brat.

And this was another reason Mari wanted everyone to survive. She wanted to see where Shinji and Asuka and Rei's relationship went from here and if they allowed it, to be the mediator who kept it friendly.  
Just because Shinji was now romantically involved with her, there was no reason for him to have to ditch his old friends that he spent years of hard work earning through blood, sweat and tears.

All three had parents whose souls were still trapped in an EVA, unwilling to die out of motherly love.  
And though even Mari acknowledged that this was being a bit optimistic, she did believe that Gendo's method of bringing back his dead wife was not the only way.

Wanting to bring a loved one back to life was a good thing in and of itself. The methods Gendo sought to employ in order to do so were not. It was clear that he didn't even love his late wife and Shinji's mother. No sane person whoever selfless just put their soul into an EVA where they might spend eternity in endless anguish and torment at the snap of a finger.  
Not to mention the sheer sorrow Yui would no doubt feel if Gendo's plan succeeded and she opened her eyes to a completely destroyed world that he destroyed for the sole purpose of brining her back.

Mari didn't want to know what that expression would look like. But it would most like surpass every Angel ever to exist in terms of the sheer horror it would impose in its non-existent beholders, who would all be dead by then.

But there had to be a way other than destroying the world in which to bring back Yui and Kyoko.  
If it were possible for a soul to survive indefinitely in a bio-engineered cyborg outside of its native human body, then clearly death was not the end at least for them.

That was some food for thought, Mari thought as she continued to finish off the smaller Angel knowing that another pilot in another EVA would take care of saving Asuka. She had a feeling she already knew who it was, and the thought made her crack a smile.

"What took you so long to recover, silly. I've been worried sick." She whispered in blissful jubilation as memories of the last time a brown-haired English girl and a grey-haired Russian boy held hands as they said their sorrowful farewells.  
She had accomplished her second goal in joining NERV. She had met Shinji and now Kaworu, and seen for herself that both of them were still alright, both physically and mentally.

Now it was time for her third and last order of business. It was time to save Yui too. How she would do it while not destroying the world, she didn't yet know but she would do it. A life for a life. She had made that promise on the day she was rescued by the mother and son.

Asuka had nearly fainted with fright when the sharp end of a large pair of white pincers thrust itself through the Angel's golden chest causing it to cry out a hellish bellow of pain as coppery blood flooded out from the gaping hole in its ruptured golden skin.  
The attack was quickly followed up by a forceful shove which knocked the creature off its feet.

Time seemed to turn to a blur as in the seconds as the Angel fell, a white EVA jumped in front of it and stuck out its kneecap for the falling beast to perfectly ram its head with full force into the hardened titanium.

The Angel had a painful grimace of primal terror at somehow being bested by a mere mortal machine as its skull collided with the EVA's kneecap.  
Less than a second later and it had no emotion at all as it quite literally lost its head as parts of its fragmented skull splattered all over the place with a satisfying crack.

And as Asuka's EVA finally ran out of power and its nerve connectors disconnected from her body, the white EVA which had saved her life stood proudly atop its now headless kill.  
The pilot, the same grey-haired boy that had helped her yesterday, returned a smart salute to the almost unconscious redhead who could not help but be fairly impressed at how he had pulled off such a complex and deadly move with seeming ease.

"You Russians. You Russians fight good." Asuka eventually admitted, a little teasingly as after prodding the headless corpse of the Angel to ensure it was really dead, the white EVA came alongside and connected its pilot's cabin with hers before opening its covering.

The pilot merely needed to welcomingly hold out his arm for Asuka to nod gratefully as she opened the covering from her now offline EVA and got on board his EVA as without a word, he began to steer it back to HQ in soft and gentle steps which were easy on both of them in their knackered state after such a battle.

"I'm proud of you Asuka." Shinji proudly remarked as he and Rei watched the duo from a distance in their EVA. "You've made your first friend that isn't me."

"Let's just hope she doesn't hit him the same way she's been hitting you." Rei sarcastically snarked.

"Rei. Give her a chance. She said she was sorry, and she's lost a lot as well."

"I'm still watching her." Rei contended herself with replying, still with a somewhat snarky suspect tone.

A few moments later and the pilots had reassembled back in a meeting room after removing their plug suits.

"Ice cream for everyone!" an ecstatic costumed Ritsuko cried in an unusually high pitched voice as she handed out tubs of cherry flavoured scoops of deliciousness to each pilot who accepted without question, amazed at this sudden act of benevolence from a usually cold and stiff antisocial scientist.

She had rushed to the store to buy it the second she was told the battle had been won.  
"You didn't die." She had cheered, unable to believe her good fortune. "Thank the heaven's you all didn't die. You're all okay, you're all alive. This calls for a celebration."  
And then she had bolted away to find the nearest ice cream stand, her instinct taking over from her brain.

"You're all alright." Ritsuko said once more to the pilots now seated before her, happily licking their ice creams completely blind to the fact they had all been through a life and death situation.

"Yes. Doctor Akagi. We are." Shinji comfortingly replied as if to brush away the fear he could hear in her otherwise cheerful voice. He had always seen her as the nice lady who cared for him in ways Misato never could, as well as the better choice of guardian that he should in all logic have been assigned but wasn't because of cruel fate.

"Call me Ritsuko." She insisted, clearly not comfortable with such levels of formality. Doctor Akagi was her title and only her co-workers referred to her by title. She wanted to make it clear that they were all connected in a way more than just colleagues.  
"I'm so happy you all made it. I thought for sure some of you were doomed. Oh please, don't scare me like that ever again."

"It was nothing, Doctor…err Ritsuko" Mari cheerily chimed in. "Just another day on the job."

"Another day another Angel gone, and another problem less for the world." Kaworu added, trying to sound as relaxed as possible.

"Just please. Be extra careful next time. I don't want to lose any of you." Ritsuko pleaded in a better controlled but still very frightened voice.

"Misato never said that." Shinji noted to himself sarcastically as he plopped the last of his ice cream into his mouth. "She also never bought us ice cream either."

"Well doctor, if there's nothing else for us, is it alright if we go now. We plan on heading to counsellors' corner before calling it a day." Mari spoke up as she finished her ice cream as well.

"But of course. That sounds like a terrific idea. You all go early so you can get some good rest before tomorrow. There's a lot of work to do with chief Ikari gone."  
Ritsuko encouragingly ordered as she slowly got up.  
"I have some of my own work to do before I head home myself as well."

"Well then, goodnight Ritsuko. We'll see you around." Asuka said as the young pilots got up and began to head towards the door.

"Yes, we will. Now get lost. Um I mean bye. No seriously, get lost."

"Let me stay behind for a little while" Rei gently requested when her friends were nearly out the door. "There's something I need to talk to the doctor about."

Asuka raised an eyebrow but politely grunted an mmhm as she left the room.

Rei did not need to wait for the sound of her friends' footsteps to die away before she delivered the message, she had promised the soul of Naoko Akagi she would deliver at the first possible opportunity. They were her friends and they would surely understand.

"Your mother, Naoko loved you, Dr Aka… I mean Ritsuko" Rei sincerely said causing the until then serene expression of contentment on the blonde scientist's face to morph into a twisted amalgamation of loathing, pride, sadness and gladness all in one.

"No, she didn't." Ritsuko retorted close to a sob. "She didn't."

Her fury turned to confusion and bewilderment after she had briefly clutched her head for a few seconds to calm herself.  
"Why bring her up, Rei? Why?" There was no anger in her voice ironically enough, only curiosity despite her earlier almost outburst.

"She told me to tell you this herself." Rei explained, maintaining complete sincerity in her every word. "She told me to make sure you were alright and to keep you safe in her place."

"You mean you talked with her?" Ritsuko was suddenly filled with a burning passion to know more immediately. A passion which rivalled the look of fire in Gendo's eyes the day he lost his wife and went off the deep end, only more rational and less unhinged. "Where did you find her? How is this possible?"

"In unit 0. My EVA. Before the battle began, her soul linked to me and told me to tell you what I'm telling you now." Rei considered withholding this information briefly but knew that to do so would be to copy the mistakes of her evil master, who had been using her to deceive everyone she knew and loved since the day of her creation.

There was no place for lies and deceit in the new world she was working alongside Shinji and the others to help create. Every piece of the truth, however ridiculous it seemed, could provide the key to victory.  
They didn't call this the information era for nothing.

"It's the truth, doctor. Please believe me." Rei now pleaded as she put an arm around a nearly broken Ritsuko.

"No. I understand Rei. I understand." The doctor's eyes were surprisingly dry when she looked up.  
"Thank you for telling me."

"I'm glad." Rei simply stated as she turned to slowly leave now that the doctor seemed under control.  
"So I guess, I'll be going now. Shinji and the others are waiting for me."

"And Rei." The doctor briefly interrupted her as she was nearly at the door.

"Yes?"

"Please understand, it's not your fault. You were just following the rules like me. And my mother, she had her problems. She used to be a nice person, but she still had her problems which she couldn't get over. I won't ask you to forgive her, but please, try to understand that I still care for you no matter what she thought of you. I promise, I'm not like her."

"I already forgave her." Rei rationally responded with no bearing of falseness in her voice, looking back at the doctor with a peaceful expression of serenity and acceptance. "We may have had our differences, but those are in the past now. I'm very grateful to her for creating me, and I'm very grateful to you for caring for me. Thank you both, for everything"

She left the room after she said this, leaving Ritsuko to smile with a level of pride and validation she had not felt since the day her mother went off the rails of sanity, dragging her along with her.

Now she understood the real reason she always felt an invisible attachment to NERV she couldn't explain herself, which enticed her to stay despite how dirty she felt after each appointment with the big man and the terrible paycheques.

"No Rei." She whispered gratefully with her hands on her heart. "Thank **you** for everything. There really is a **lot** of work to do."

...

"NO! STOP PLAYING THAT MOVIE! STOP IT PLEASE. I'M BEGGING YOU!" Misato cried in great anguish as she knocked her box of popcorn to the floor as she thrashed around in her seat.  
The ingratitude shown to poor Homura in the ending of the movie "Homura's rebellion" had left her torn enough, but now a seemingly innocent and charming children's movie meant to be much less serious and dark than that one was giving her feelings punch after punch.

"I thought Sailor Moon was meant to be a kid's show." she wailed as the other Sailor guardians (a group of teenage girls clad in the traditional sailor fuku outfits, each with amazing superpower to destroy several Angels with a flick of their wrist) chased the young and sickly pre-teen girl "Sailor Saturn" around, pelting beams of elemental chaos in her direction with full intent to kill her.

The prettiness in her modest but no less beautiful clothes of mostly black and dark opal. The short black hair complimenting her sullen and resigned smile of self hatred which seemed to be silently saying the words "death row, next in line speaking" emphasised her complete innocence. As had the many helpful deeds of pure selflessness that girl had spent the first half of the movie committing despite the startling disregard the supposed "main characters" had shown her even back then.

"It is a kid's show" Maya nonchalantly returned with a hint of resentment in her voice. "It's about a kid who just happens to be the victim of horrific abuse from the bullies supposed to be her friends."

"That's messed up! What they're trying to do to her is messed up!" Misato cried.

"And so is what you've let Asuka and Gendo do to Shinji all these years." Maya contemptuously replied as she snatched the remote away from Misato when she tried to grab hold of it to hit the off button.

"Keep watching Misato. There's a happy ending at the end if you just stay tuned." Maya imperiously ordered.

Misato groaned as she reluctantly turned her tear filled eyes back to the screen.

"In the name of the moon, I'll punish you Asuka." she vowed, pure venom in her voice.  
"And Kyubey, my wish as a magical girl is to see Asuka be given to proper discipline she richly deserves for mistreating my innocent little boy."

_Props once more to my reviewers for reviewing my work. So another fragment of the truth is revealed. Will our heroes put this information to good use?  
So many problems in Evangelion could have been avoided if the characters just communicated more.  
What we've got here…is failure to communicate.  
Special thanks to fictionelement777, howahotgluegun, StraightedgeEpyon and Darkscythe Drake for your contributions to me._


	27. Finally a therapy session

**Chapter 27: Finally a therapy session. **

_Mari and Shinji's relationship is comparable to that of Mitsuha and Taki's relationship of the film "your name" ._

The EVA pilots had each stopped by at the washroom downstairs to wash the dyes from their hair and style it back to their normal styles (in Asuka's case, she simply removed her wig). Comic con day was fun while it lasted but now it was time to get serious again.  
They couldn't pretend to be someone they were not forever, and that was part of the reason they were now heading to be counselled.

"Mari" Kaworu groaned with a touch of anger in his usually calm voice riding shotgun as Mari drove the car towards Counsellor's corner. "I told you that being a pilot was a very dangerous job. Why did you join NERV? I only did it so you wouldn't have to."

"I got tired of waiting for you to return, and I also knew that with the Angel attacks getting worse, I was needed." Mari simply explained. "Not to mention that from my experience with Shinji and his mum, I knew that NERV couldn't be all bad. Besides, we'll have a better shot at all making it to see the end of this if we work together. I'm sorry, if my decision upset you."

"No" Kaworu admitted. "I'm sorry. I should have known better than to be angry. I should have known that you would eventually miss me. And even if you didn't, you would do anything for the kind boy who saved your life."

He turned to look back at a now completely speechless Shinji who visibly shrank back despite the evident gratitude in Kaworu's usually taciturn expression.

"I cannot begin to fully explain how much it means to me to have a chance to thank the one who saved Mari's life. Know that from this day, I too am forever in your debt Shinji. Thank you, Shinji. For everything."

"It was nothing." Shinji exasperatedly tried to reply.

"It's everything to me, Shinji. Without you, I would still be the lonely outcast I was before, forever heading down a dark and troubled road to nowhere. Thank you for protecting Mari and taking care of her during the time I could not so that we could see each other again. Know that even if no one else believes this, that from today onward, you will always be pilot number one to me. The true best pilot of NERV."

"It's true Shinji" Mari said picking up to where Kaworu left off as he turned back. "Without your piloting skills and your synchronisation with your EVA that you alone had, who knows how many times I would be dead by now."

"It's true, Shinji. You've beaten tons of those stupid Angels which me and Rei couldn't even scratch and kept fighting even when both of us were out cold simply so that you could save us even after all the terrible things I…"

"We Asuka" Rei reminded, looking away from Shinji and downward in shame. "I wasn't the nicest to Shinji either in those years, constantly gaslighting him just because I couldn't see how bad a man his father was through my own stupidity and thoughtlessness. Even after we were so mean to you, you chose to save us again and again Shinji knowing that you were putting more than just your life on the line each time. Knowing that you could get into even more trouble with those in charge of you by disobeying your orders. (One time, you nearly even caused an impact trying to save me). Because you thought of us as your friends."

"Well you were my friends. Even though you both had your flaws, I still loved you both" insisted Shinji firmly despite his bashfulness in the moment.

"What I guess we're trying to tell you Shinji." Asuka chimed in, pride filling her every word completely uncharacteristic of the self-absorbed narcissist she had been until today. "Is that for being such a nice guy and for everything you've done for us over the years, congratulations.

"Congratulations." Rei added.

"Congratulations" Kaworu praised, turning to look at Shinji once more with an admiring smile.

"Congratulations" Mari added, unable to turn around since she was focused on the road but the pride in her eyes still visible through the front mirror that Shinji could easily see in his position in the backseats cosily smooched between the now completely different Rei and Asuka.

"Congratulations." A woman with brown hair and thoughtful eyes finished as she grinned at Shinji from the clear maroon evening sky of Tokyo 3, from a place Shinji knew to be both real and imaginary at the same time.

It wasn't until their car had climbed a steep hill and began to slowly decelerate that the now completely enlightened Shinji, seemingly freed of all his turmoil and pain in the moment managed in a barely audible but no less euphoric almost whisper managed to shyly reply.

"Thank you all." He smiled with closed eyes and a blush on his cheeks.

"Thank you, mother. No thank you, father. And to all the children (that meaning all of you and myself since yes, to be quite frank I am quite the awesome kick-ass badass), congratulations"

As the car stopped in a parking lot and the quintet of underage battle scared veterans slowly exited their vehicle to behold the place of therapy that they should have been to long ago.

…

Counsellor's corner should have been renamed Counsellor's castle with the level of pizzazz and wonder that both its grand exterior and interior possessed by the magnificent building that reminded the five young EVA pilots of the Olympian halls that the mighty titans of legend were rumoured to have lived in back in the days of Jason, Hercules and Achilles.  
The marble columns along with the long, wide stairway to the entrance gave the impression of a heavenly temple.

Service was quick and efficient. Within a few minutes of Mari explaining everything to the well dressed woman in a nurse's gown at reception, a man from upstairs arrived to tell the pilots that they had each been assigned a therapist tailor suited to help each of them better come to terms with the different but equally serious afflictions they had suffered in silence through.

…

Shinji's therapist was a handsome man seemingly not much older than himself (despite him politely stating later that he was actually over thirty) with short dark hair and a casual shirt and pants. Pictures of various motorcycles lined the walls and a few trophies (for winning motorcycle races as the therapist later explained) were placed neatly on a nearby shelf.

The man introduced himself as Keiichi Morisato, award winning motorcyclist who was on a hot streak before stepping down following a near accident that nearly killed himself and his beloved but luckily did not cause them any injury except mental trauma. His choice to take mental sciences as his degree of choice for college was done in the hope of being able to help others still trapped in the pit of loneliness, he had felt prior to meeting his wife, a certain Belldandy.

A lovely woman quite out of this world, he described her as making Shinji smile in wistful remembrance of his first sight of Mari gliding onto his school building roof, and then seeing her again outside the train station where she provided him all the help he needed to regain hope in himself, humanity and the world.  
She had literally, descended from the heavens to help him in his hour of need. Like an angel, a true angel. Partly thanks to his own good past decisions he now knew… but still.

"Explain your problem, Shinji." He politely asked, a sympathetic tone in his words signifying complete understanding of Shinji's turmoil, whatever it could be and that he too had once been through a comparable level of depression at one point in his own life.

"It all started, when I lost my mum." Shinji begun. "And my dad begun to use me as a scapegoat for everything before everyone around me followed his example despite my best efforts to keep things under control."

…

Rei's therapist was a woman of a different calibre. A middle-aged woman with white hair clad in a very expensive purple dress of the same fine tune calibre as the blue dress Rei herself had brought in her quest for Shinji's attention and Asuka's approval.

"I am Urd." She stated in a serious and level voice with almost the same amount of monotony as the earlier versions of Rei used prior to gaining a higher level of personality brought about by Shinji's constant kindness towards her. She really wasn't thinking straight back then, but she promised herself that she was different now. "What ails you, Rei Ayanami, esteemed heroine and guardian of Earth?

"I still don't feel fully human." Rei replied, unable to look up as the terrible memories of all the wasted chances she had to tell Shinji just how much his kindness truly meant to her flashed by her eyes and tears began to blur her vision. "I feel, I feel as if the mistakes of the past that I made can never be erased no matter how hard I try.

She paused as the mental image of a maniacally cackling Gendo pulsed through her very soul. "You belong to me Rei and you can never escape." He insisted before bursting into crazed laughter causing Rei to shiver uncontrollably while clutching her head.

"Like I'm, still just a puppet held up on stitches. Like I'm not meant to be."

"All of us have a right to life, Rei." Urd soothingly stated, placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "Regardless of our race, gender and other differences, we are all human because we all have a soul and free choice to decide between good and bad."

"I don't want to be held up on stitches." Rei shrieked, more to herself than her therapist as she continued to clutch her head. "I want to be myself. I want to help my friends, my real friends who actually care for my wellbeing."

And she went on through her sighs and sobs to explain to "Urd" that she was originally a clone of the now deceased Yui Ikari built by the insane Gendo Ikari in preparation to when he brought about the end of the world through her, to resurrect his late wife.

She told Urd how Gendo had been using her as a subtle way of keeping his son Shinji loyal to him despite his clearly evil intentions and how she had done everything he asked her to do despite knowing how morally wrong it was deep down even before gaining an improved level of sapience through her growing to actually love and care for the boy she had been trained by her master to deceive.

"Before, I blamed it on the way I was originally programmed, but now I'm not so sure." Rei said as the session continued. "But I don't want to be a puppet any longer. Please help me."

…

Mari's therapist and her, seemed to be the most similar to each other in appearance.  
Belldandy Morisato had long dark blonde hair that could easily be mistaken for the same brown as Mari's.  
A white robe as Belldandy's choice of attire reminded Mari of the priests of old in their cathedrals chanting prayers, blind to the suffering of the masses outside.

Something in the way Belldandy smiled reminded Mari that she was different and truly a holy woman for the sake of holiness. She steadied herself and smiled back.

"And how may I help you today, Mari Makinami?" Belldandy sang chipperly, nearly bursting into chorus with every word. "We owe you and your other pilots our complete gratitude for all the sacrifices that you have endured to protect us all from the unspeakable horrors plaguing our world, left behind by the careless previous generation who were unfortunate enough to stray from the path of righteousness."

"Thank you, Belldandy. We do our best. I suppose my only problem would be this. A boy who saved my life when I was very little has just announced his feelings for me. And while, I'm indeed very grateful to be chosen by him, I fear I might not be worthy of him."

"What could you possibly mean?" Something in the way she asked this question revealed to Mari that this was not the first time Belldandy had been called upon to deal with an issue of this nature. It relieved Mari greatly.

"Shinji is a very fine young hero, and a worthy fellow pilot of mine. I fully return his feelings of course, but part of me still fears that I will not be able to provide for him all he deserves. And I'm usually the sort of go getter who never fears a challenge. And to make things more complicated, Shinji still has his two former friends Asuka and Rei. While they seem happy so far with how Shinji has chosen me over them, I truly wonder if I really am the one for him. He's known them for much longer than he's known me so. What do you think of all this?"

"If they are truly his friends, then they will understand." Belldandy reassuringly assuaged a slightly tense Mari. "Just as my relatives, Skuld and Urd understood when I chose Keiichi and grew to accept him in time. I am sure Shinji's friends will happily accept you once they realize your intentions are completely noble, which from what you've told me ,they must be."

"But what if they turn out to be better for him than I am?" Mari had hid this concern earlier but now she felt it was an issue that must be dealt with before things went sour. She had to get along well with both Shinji and his friends if they were going to work together well enough to pilot effectively.

Not to mention that in spite of his newfound confidence, a tiny slip up was all it would take for Shinji to retreat back into the terrible shell no one should ever have to be confined to, out of free choice or not.

"When someone truly loves you, they return your feelings. And if you love somebody, you trust in them to make the best decision. Shinji has already announced his feelings for you. For you not to trust his decision is for you to not trust in him." Belldandy's softly intoned in an almost romantic manner. "And there are many kinds of relationships. Relationships with family, relationships with friends and of course, relationships of lovers. All three are equally valuable."

"What do you mean?"

Belldandy took a brief glance at a photo she had of herself and Keiichi the first time they won a motorcycle trophy together. She turned back to Mari, her eyes gleaming with wisdom seemingly beyond the world itself.

"Simply put, no two friends needed to become lovers before they started to care for each other.  
A person can love their family, their friends and their lovers all at once in equally special ways. And it is better to love uniquely than equally for each relationship is different, but uniquely sweet and special in its own way."

"I think I understand" Mari hesitantly concluded as the rest of the session drifted to small talk about how a small bit of the trauma that remained from her terrifying childhood in which she lost both her parents was still faintly haunting her despite how she had mostly moved on, and whether the years she and Shinji spent apart before being reunited disqualified them as viable matches for each other.

…

None of the therapists came close to the level of sheer awesomeness Asuka perceived in the dark-haired goth in the red cape and dark overalls seated before her, like a goddess on her throne overlooking the puny world she had complete reign over.

While Keiichi had but a few trophies on just a single shelf, the therapist who proudly introduced herself as "Morgan Le fay" (she nicely asked Asuka not to make fun of her admittedly very strange last name which simply meant Morgan the fairy in French) had a cabinet full of golden cups, plaques and medals of all shapes and sizes.  
NERV's increased stinginess with its taxes, as well as an increasing number of increasingly powerful Angels had put a dent in her motorcycling career and Morgan had decided, partly as penance for her past mistakes to follow the good Keiichi and Belldandy into the therapy career.

"But you're pretty awesome too Asuka." Morgan admitted when Asuka had expressed her jubilation at meeting one of her childhood idols who had been a source of encouragement and inspiration for her ever since she saw her at her first big race. "Were it not for you, Shinji and the others, I wouldn't be alive and here to have this discussion now. You all must go through a lot every day for us, and I respect that."

"Thank you" Asuka could not help but reply with a look that screamed "yay Senpai noticed me" now that she had been validated personally by her idol. If only her mother could have been here to see this.

"So, getting back on topic. What is it that's bothering you Asuka?"

"Well, I er" Asuka stammered out as a sudden lump caught in her throat. She could play tough all she liked when she was in the company of Misato, Shinji and the rest of NERV and the public, but in the presence of her esteemed childhood heroine whose ethics and ethos a young and still innocent Asuka had swore she would try to emulate as best she could.  
She couldn't pretend here and she had come here specifically to not have to pretend.

"It's okay Asuka, take your time. We have as long as you need."

"Well its just, that I don't feel I can measure up to anything." Asuka eventually managed to get out in a somewhat coherent if shaky line.

"I feel as if I'm never worth anything in life. And that no matter how I try, my successes never get anyone's attention.

"But why would you feel this way, Asuka? You and your friends have saved our world countless times by now. Surely that must be worth something to you?"

"But what's the point." Asuka snapped, almost losing her cool. "It's all worthless. My mother. My own mother couldn't give a damn about me. She chose a doll over me, her own daughter that she paid a fortune to bring into existence."

"What do you mean, Asuka?"

"My mother didn't birth me." The usually confident Asuka was close to a sob. "She grew me from some of her cells in a lab." She laughed, dryly to herself.  
It turned out Rei was not the only artificial human around here. Kind of ironic how many times she had insulted the blue haired girl for being guilty of something she was guilty of herself.

"That means nothing, Asuka. To me at least, you're as human as the rest of us. And that means you have rights like the rest of us. How you were born is not important. What matters is that you're here and now, alive and well protecting our world with your heroism. Your actions define you much more than the way you were born."

"But she never loved me" Asuka snarled viciously, her nails digging into her legs as her sadness intensified. "She loved a doll, over me. I could never make her proud no matter what I did. And when I eventually became a pilot, she was killed. I couldn't even make my own mother happy. So what does it what I do?"  
She stifled another dry laugh as she nearly resorted to raising her voice.  
Her position didn't seem all that different to Shinji's either now that she thought about it.

Shinji's father didn't appreciate Shinji for his efforts either. She really did feel a bit bad now thinking on all the times she had taken a light jab at all his failed attempts to improve his relationship with that evil man.

Like Shinji in the lack of parental respect received. Like Rei in the artificiality in her method of conception into this cold and cruel world. Fate really had its sense of humour sometimes, pairing the three of them together.

"You hate me because you're just like me" She heard Shinji's angry voice echo back to her.

"But I thought we were kindred spirits Asuka." Old Rei's deflated monotone soon followed causing Asuka to shrink back into her seat with her ears covered.

"She began spending more and more time at NERV and less and less time with me. Is that any way for a mother to treat her daughter whose every action was to make her mother proud?" Asuka asked, incredulous.

"That's sad Asuka. It really is. But what about your father?"

"My father was a very evil man." Asuka insisted with a burning passion. "A cruel sadistic two timer who took my mother and I completely for granted. He was always with another woman who wasn't my mum and when he did stay with my mum and I, he was very violent."

Asuka shook as she said the following words. The three words that perfectly summed up the one part of her wretched youth that she tried the hardest to forget and yet stayed in her memory the longest.

"He beat her." Asuka said with complete and absolute pity for her mother lacing her every syllable, completely ignoring the fact that her mother wasn't exactly a priest either.

"My dad, beat my mum and tried to beat me. And he did it all with no one trying to stop him because he was a high-ranking member of NERV with a higher rank than my mum and lots of woman attracted to him, completely blind to the monster he really was."

"That sounds terrible." Morgan replied with sympathy but still somehow not losing her cool. Another reason Asuka made the star motorcyclist her childhood idol.

"And then my mother killed herself when the doll she loved more than me broke apart." Asuka finished, nearly shouting.

She began to stifle a sob.

"I didn't have it easy either." She cried as a tear trickled from her eyes.

"I DIDN'T HAVE IT EASY EITHER!" she shouted as more tears followed the first and she gave herself a punch to the face whose sheer force outmatched every single punch she had given to Shinji over her years of being an overly salty bully who had given to Shinji the same pain her mum and dad gave her.

She understood now why Shinji had seemed like an overly emo coward, and now that she did, she absolutely loathed herself.  
Every punch she had given Shinji, was a punch she had given herself.  
Every time she insulted him by calling him an idiot, she was calling herself and everyone unlucky enough to be in the same insufferable hell she would not wish upon her worst enemies, an idiot as well.

She really was an idiot.

"NO ONE LOVES ME!" she bawled as her fourteen years of maturity, collapsed to the level of a four year old, crying over having used up their last quarter in the arcade machine.  
She yelled as she cried some more, occasionally punctuating her tantrum with yet another self-inflicted punch to her forehead.

"Please Asuka. Stop hitting yourself. It's not helping." Morgan tried to say.

"WHY CAN'T I DO ANYTHING RIGHT?" Asuka snapped in return as she readied her fist for another punch to her head only to be stopped by Morgan quickly gripping her arm in a sturdy but still comfortable grip.

"What do you mean you can't do anything right, Asuka? You've already saved the world more times than I can count. So many people are indebted to you for going through what you go through to keep them safe."

"I couldn't even be nice to Shinji." She shakily sobbed through her sadness, choking on every word. "I couldn't even learn from my parent's mistakes. I'm a terrible person who doesn't deserve to be loved."

And she would go on in the next ten minutes after she had finally gotten enough of a grip on herself to at least stop crying, to briefly summarize how over the previous few years, she had been no better than her domestically abusive father in the hits she delivered to her secretly favourite roommate and teammate, and no better than her short sighted mother in completely disregarding his sincere attempts to get her attention to the feelings he had toward her in spite of all her meanness.

He complimented her, she slapped him.  
He cooked her meals and cleaned her room, and she hit him over the head with the broom he used to clean it.

"He says he forgives me." The now nearly insane Asuka truthfully added in a brief moment of relative lucidity "But the truth is, I don't think he really does. I don't think he can ever truly forgive me."

A sob and a sigh.

"And even if he could, I don't think I can ever forgive myself."

"Asuka please." Morgan interjected when Asuka was silent for the next for seconds to signify she was done saying all she had to say.  
"Asuka. It's good that you realize what you did was wrong but continuing to hurt yourself over your mistakes won't fix them. If anything, it means you'll never get a chance to fix them. If there is one thing I can tell you, coming from experience, it's that pointing the finger never solves the problem. It's not about who was right or wrong but finding a solution for the problem. It's better to be at peace, than right."

"But what can I do?" Asuka helplessly sighed.

"If it was your violence and inconsideration which nearly drove your friend Shinji to despair, then to prove you've changed, you need to do the opposite. You need to start treating him the way you should have treated him long ago, while making it clear you will not go back to making the same mistakes you've now learned from. It might take a while, but eventually you will convince him and everyone else that you really are a better person now."

Morgan then launched into a brief but no less poignant heartfelt speech on how the path to reformation was never easy, but always very, very worthwhile as Asuka wiped her face with a packet of tissues kindly provided by her therapist and star and with incredibly force of willpower stopped herself from sobbing any further.

There was no time to waste in self-pity and needless rumination. She needed to start demonstrating to not just Shinji, but everyone she knew that the tyrannical bully that had been terrorizing everyone she knew since the day she arrived in Japan from Germany, was a person of the past.

As dead as the uncaring mum and dad who had raised her, and raised her badly.

Es war zeit fur der nachlebenden generation, der probleme von der tatergeneration zu fixen.

It was time for the new generation to fix the mistakes left behind by the older generation.

It was too late to amend the past, but not too late to secure the future so that the terrible pain endured in the past was not wasted.

Asuka had spent all her life telling Shinji to stop running away and face his past. Now it was time for her to take her own advice.

…

The four pilots came out of their respective therapy rooms two hours later, each wearing a relaxed yet determined expression of unbreakable hope and euphoric relief at finally having released the burden each of them had suffered in silence in for far too long now.

"When thunder clouds start pouring down, light a fire they can't put out. Carve your name into the shining stars" Shinji sang to remind himself of everything his therapist had reminded him to do.

"I live life without pretending." Rei declared proudly. "I'm not Pinocchio and I'm very real."

"An eye for an eye, only makes the world blind." Asuka recited, finishing the saying she had often heard her crazed father often shout the unfinished version of during his drunken rages.

"Life gave me lemons and now it's time to make lemonade." Mari finished, regaining all her usual optimism and happy-go luckiness in that one sentence.

They walked downstairs in a neat line, Mari taking point, Shinji following closely behind, Asuka third and the shyly smiling Rei last.

Asuka shot a panicked and fretting glance at the clone of Shinji's mother, now with her long waist length blue hair trailing behind her very attractively with every step she took.  
Rei simply grinned in reply, her gaze soft and not hard and her body movements completely peaceful.

A reminder that when her friends forgave her, they meant it.  
A reminder of what made the two Japanese and one British perfect for her, despite their imperfections.

"Everyone, thank you so much for giving me this chance" Asuka said to herself in her head as they headed to reception to find a nearly asleep Kaworu who had just finished looking through the entire stack of video game magazines in a box by his sofa.

And as they headed out of the building where Mari would drive them to her mansion so that they could all eat one of Sakura's seven star banquets before going to bed to get an earlier rest, Asuka cracked a satisfied grin at how much trouble the Angels, NERV and SEELE were going to have now that she could focus her complete hatred upon them instead of the selfless companions she was now beholden to guard with her life if necessary.

Gendo was going to regret every ounce of ingratitude he had shown his wholly devoted and loving son and for driving a good woman, wife and mother to suicide through his megalomania.

SEELE was going to wish they were never born when she made them pay for trying to force Rei into a position that she loathed, of being the destroyer of the world and everyone she loved just all for the sake of satisfying SEELE's stupid fantasies, ignorance that could destroy a planet.

And the Angels would pay for denying them all the simple life as normal teenagers they so richly deserved after their messed up childhoods around messed up people.

…

Gendo Ikari was rubbing his hands together with a cracked grimace on his face as flight attendants attended his every whim from the comfort of his extra luxury class cabin on his extra luxury class flight.

Soon he would be arriving in the country of liberty, hopes and dreams where his silly little runt of a son and his disobedient little wretch of a daughter were hoping to find these completely useless things.  
He'd show them the futility of hope.  
He'd take great glee in dashing their dreams against the razor sharp cliff of despair, to see the look on their faces when they lost all hope.  
And as for liberty? No one who was the property of the most powerful man on Earth, more influential than even the entirety SEELE was going to get any kind of liberty as long as he was breathing.

Not Shinji, not Rei and certainly not even his wife Yui when he resurrected her.

They belonged to him and they would always be his toys, he thought to himself as he chugged down an entire bottle of French Champagne before devouring a whole roasted goose in a few savage bites.

It was a cat and mouse game that those misguided little runts simply could not win.

He had that blonde haired Mami Tomoe woman to thank for that. Perhaps when he returned, he would give her the honour of being his personal escort. That seemed appropriate as a reward for her admittedly useful contribution. No woman in the world could ever turn down that offer with the great Gendo Ikari being as magnificent as he alone could be. Ritsuko was starting to bore him anyway with her lacklustre appearance.

She was starting to outlive her usefulness and when one of his lackeys outlived their usefulness...

_I mean seriously, its about time the members of NERV got some kind of therapy.  
Another easy step that would have removed so many problems._


	28. Asuka's nightmare

**Chapter 28: Asuka's nightmare.**

Asuka had never felt more grateful for anything in her life as she followed her friends into the luxurious white mansion Mari had welcomed them to share with her.  
All the terrible things she had done, and her friends still wanted her in the same house with them to share in their company.

The young brown haired younger sister of Toji, Sakura was present to welcome the knackered pilots of the world's second biggest science corporation and biggest military corporation inside the big house.

Today she was clad in what appeared to be a military uniform of a brown and white jacket with dark pants. Her pleasant and welcoming grin quickly became a venomous frown upon seeing the red haired German nervously try to raise a smile.

"You aren't welcome in here, you bully." She snarled, sounding more like a grizzled warlord than a ten-year-old butler. "Get out before I throw you out.". She raised her almost stick like arms in an attempt to intimidate which came off as more comical than frightening but the sternness in her voice still made it clear she would not hesitate to throw down her life beating down the much taller and stronger red haired girl if she did not immediately comply.

Asuka briefly opened her mouth to respond with her own insult only to quickly shut it as the truly traumatic memory of her fist connecting with Shinji's face came back upon her as clear as a whistle.  
Toji's younger sister from what Toji had said of her was known for her pacifism and incredible patience. She had every right to be angry, Asuka thought as she hung her head in shame.

"It's alright Sakura." Mari quickly intervened before her overzealous butler boiled over and followed up her threat with a vicious assault. "Asuka apologized and she's promised that she's going to be better now. She knows what she did was wrong and she's changed."

"I don't believe her. And you shouldn't either. She's spent so long beating down on poor Shinji now and she needs to learn her lesson." Sakura furiously snarled as she clenched her teeth further and took a menacing step forward with an expression that looked like she was going to run right through Asuka without mercy in the next second.  
"Shinji doesn't need her in his life, and neither do any of you. Asuka's done nothing but cause harm to everyone around her and the world would be better off without her."

The events of the next few moments made Asuka's pitch black heart turn white with humility and appreciation. The world may have been a terrible place with terrible people, but at least she was surrounded by wonderful friends.

"Sakura please. Calm down" Shinji politely and gently requested as he walked up to the fuming brunette and placed a hand upon her shoulder, causing her rage to seemingly cool in an instant as she reluctantly lowered her fists and gave him a confused and sheepish frown of apology.

"I forgave Asuka. She really is sorry for everything and she's promised me that she won't beat me up anymore. Please, she's my friend. Give her a chance."

Sakura looked at Asuka once more as Asuka finally gathered the courage to look the honest and hardworking little sister of Toji with a trembling grin, only barely managing to meet her disapproving gaze. It was clear that this girl had not had it easy in her childhood either and that at least part of her apparent hard-heartedness came from Toji himself.  
Knowing what Asuka knew about the roughness Toji was not ashamed to handle Shinji with despite apparently being "his friend", it was not a far stretch to assume that he must have driven his sister away with the same roughness.

An only ten-year-old girl wouldn't be working as a neatly dressed and overly formal butler otherwise. "You poor adorable little thing", Asuka could not help but mumble under her breath.  
What was it these days with abusive families who did not appreciate each other anyway?

Sakura eventually turned back to Shinji once she had stared at Asuka pretty fixatedly for a few seconds.  
"Are you sure she really repents her mistakes?"  
Wow, she even had advanced language skills. And Asuka thought she was the one who had matured the most in the shortest time.

"I'm sure Sakura. She said so herself and I believe her." Shinji reassured.

"As do I." Rei added when the young butler still did not seem completely convinced. "I truly believe that Asuka really has turned over a new leaf."

"I believe her too" Kaworu confirmed, as Sakura looked at him finally defusing the last of her anger as she turned back to Asuka with a mildly more formal scowl.

"Since Shinji and his friends trust you, I'll allow you to enter. But don't think I won't be keeping an eye on you, Asuka. They might trust you now, but I don't."

"Thank you, Sakura." Asuka replied, complete modesty in her tone as she followed her friends into the dining room where a magnificent meal of pizza, steak, chips along with a banoffee desert, had already been prepared for each and every one of them.

They snapped it up ravenously like a pack of wolves after each complimenting Sakura. Being an EVA pilot was hard work.

It wasn't until after the meal that everyone had mostly left that Asuka stayed for a while to talk to Sakura. She needed to let the mistreated younger sibling know that she was on her side, no matter what hostilities Sakura held towards her.  
As well as letting her know that she was not the only ignored and mistreated child in the world.

"Why don't you live with Toji and your parents?" Asuka delicately begun the conversation by asking as Sakura began to take a handful of plates to the kitchen.

"Because Toji hates me." Sakura replied, still completely focused on her chores despite the evident weariness in her disgruntled posture as she took a handful of plates to the kitchen with Asuka following her with another handful of plates in her own hands.

It felt odd for her to be the one doing the chores Shinji usually did for her especially not in her own house, yet strangely satisfying.  
Better late than never. It was clear that Sakura was still a little sick from the evident soreness every time she spoke, indicating a hotness in her throat and head that had not completely gone away yet.  
"He thinks its my fault that we don't have enough money and so does dad."

"What about your mum?" Asuka asked as she joined Sakura in rinsing and scrubbing a dish at a separate compartment of the sink in the kitchen, they took the dishes into.

A few ominous seconds of silence.

"She died." Sakura shrilly retorted, nearly dropping the dish she was cleaning still with her back turned to Asuka. "She was hit by a NERV escort truck when it swerved onto the pavement to get around traffic and it crashed right into her at full speed. When we couldn't afford the bill for her operation, the doctors switched off her life support machine and kicked my dad out of the hospital. And since then, he's never been the same ever again. Especially not to me."

"What do you mean?" Asuka had a feeling she already knew where this was going and though she didn't like it one bit, she had to get to the bottom of this if it killed her.  
She had learned from her therapy session that until she understood each and everyone from the inside out, to say she liked or disliked them was nothing but a presumptuous and thoughtless insult.  
She needed to understand Sakura and Sakura needed to understand her.

She had deep down always wanted to meet the incredibly nice sounding younger sister Toji spoke of, sometimes fondly in deep brotherly respect, sometimes with complete and utter contempt as if he were furious with the fact she had even been born.  
And now that she had, she was not going to throw this chance away.

"Dad never wants to see me again." Sakura bitterly explained, a silent sob hidden obscurely amidst her bitter words. "He thinks it's my fault that mum died since she was on her way to buy me a present for my birthday when she got hit. So, I left him and got a job working for Mari. She's very nice to me and she pays me more than enough to feed me and my family."

"I'm so sorry." Asuka helplessly blurted out, unable to stop herself from slipping these words out but not at all regretful having spoken them.  
Having been thrown away by her own mother in favour of a lifeless doll, she understood every bit of Sakura's pain and felt the complete same.

"No you're not." Sakura rebutted, as she put the cleaned dish onto a drying rack and took another dish with her shaking and tired arms. "You're not sorry. No one is. No one can understand the bull I've been through and neither can you. You don't know what it's like to be unloved by your parents when you've spent a lifetime trying to make them proud and happy. You don't. All you know is how to smash Shinji's face in when he doesn't do what you tell him to do and even when he does do what you want, you smash his face in anyway."

"That's not true" Asuka began. "I completely understand what you're going through right now."

"Convince me otherwise then." Sakura demanded; her face fortunately turned away so as not to reveal to Asuka the truly pitiable grimace in her gritted teeth.  
"Convince me that you even remotely care about anyone but yourself after all the terrible things you've done to Shinji and the other pilots who've done nothing but try to be nice to you."

And so for the next few minutes as both girls continued to work on the dirty dishes, Asuka gave Sakura a shortened but still completely honest retelling of her own childhood and how a very violent man beat a very browbeaten woman into submission and how she then passed her suffering and pain onto her daughter when she turned her affections towards a lifeless doll assuming that to be her daughter instead of her real flesh and blood one.

"You're lying." Sakura insisted.

"It's the truth Sakura. I swear. I've gotten tired of lying and I'm not going to do it anymore."

Asuka told Sakura how on the day she was promoted to the rank of EVA pilot, her mother died in what was meant to be her daughter's finest hour of prominence.  
And how if the explanation's her employer Mari gave her held any grain of fact to them, then it was NERV who murdered her mother and harvested her soul to power EVA unit 2, the very EVA unit Asuka was put in charge of piloting without any of Asuka's knowledge.

"We really aren't so different after all." Sakura eventually concluded after several minutes of silence in which she vehemently tried to deny any of what Asuka had just told her.

"No Sakura. We're not."

"And, you never had it easy either."

"No Sakura. I didn't. And Shinji didn't either. And neither did Mari, Rei or Kaworu. I know that now, and that's why I now know what I did was completely wrong on every level.  
And while I know it's too late to say sorry, I'll say it anyway. I'm sorry. Really, I am."

Asuka turned to the pile of dishes Sakura still had remaining left unwashed.  
"I'll take care of these ones. You go get some rest. I can see you're tired and not well."

"I'm fine" Sakura weakly tried to insist as a yawn then a cough choked her words.

"No really. You're not in good shape. You need to rest now for your own good. You're going to hurt yourself working so hard. And it's alright. I can do this."

Sakura looked at Asuka suspiciously for a few moments.

"Fine. But you'd better make sure you do a good job of everything." She reluctantly accepted as she droopily headed out of the kitchen and up the stairs.  
It was only the thought of whether Asuka really wasn't talking trash when she claimed to have changed which kept her up on her way to her bedroom as her head begun to feel sore.  
Mari had told her she should have been in bed for at least another few days on account of her illness but she had insisted that since she liked Mari, she was ready to start working again even when deep down she knew she was not.

Asuka was pretty beat up too by the time she had finally finished with the massive stack of dishes and cooking containers that Sakura had used to prepared the amazingly tasty meal from earlier and tidied the table before wiping it down, taking care not to miss any stains or grime.  
Tough work, and Shinji and Sakura went through this every day. Now she really felt bad for them.  
But at least it felt nice to do good, she thought to herself as she headed upstairs, took a quick shower before wrapping on a towel, and passed the room she saw Shinji and Mari cosily sharing a king sized bed in, to the next room where a shyly smiling Rei clad in a set of pyjamas the same colour as her hair was already sitting on the one of two beds closer to the floral curtained windows.

The blunette through a drowsy yawn, pointed at the empty bed in front of her where a set of red pyjamas were conveniently placed, before falling back onto her back with her eyes closed, very quietly snoring.

After quickly changing into the very soft red fabric, Asuka took out a sleeping pill from little cardboard box given to her by her psychologist and with the help of a small glass of water she had brought with her, gulped down the extremely beneficial medication.

She should have been taking these ages ago but between being surrounded by the psychotic hacks at NERV and her stupid childhood belief that admitting her insecurities and flaws to anyone meant weakness, she had never even considered seeing a psychologist let alone taking any medication.

For the first night in her lifetime, much needed sleep came in minutes rather than an hour.  
This was truly so much better, Asuka thought as sleep overtook her.  
Finally a chance to rest up properly. She planned to be first to awaken in the morning so that she could get breakfast ready, saving the still sick Sakura a lot of work.

…

For the next few hours, nothing disturbed the peace in the now completely dark and silent mansion.  
Each and every one of the residents was in a deep and contented sleep, some of them snoring lightly.  
It was at first the same way for Asuka as she lay on her side, cosily snuggled in her duvet and red pyjamas.

It was at midnight when the moonlight shone brightest, causing a brilliant ray of sinister white light to seep through the gap in the curtains bathing the room in an eerie aura of semi brightness, that the red haired girl began to twitch uncomfortably as she let out a light groan and began to roll around on her bed.

Even despite the soothing effects of her medications, she was having a nightmare.  
And a terrifying one at that.

…

_The dream seemed so clear, so vibrant, so alive.  
Dream Asuka could clearly discern everything as she cautiously edged forward, metal clanging under her feet with every step she took. From the slightly smudged emblem on a nearby wall, she guessed she was in one of NERV's underground lab complexes._

_A scream echoed from far away followed by the sound of shattered bones._

_"No. No. Please, NOOOO!" the voice screamed as Asuka edged closer to where the screamer seemed to be, already freaking out over how much control she had over what was meant to be a mere illusion constructed by her own mind._

_"STOP IT ASUKA. PLEASE STOP. I'll DO ANYTHING, ANYTHING!" The voice pleaded as the sounds of fists and kicks resounded across the chamber.  
A voice devoid of any hope, happiness or sanity. Shinji's voice._

_"Shinji?" Asuka somehow managed to say in her dream as she turned a corner, to find out too late that with her one word, she had asked the question that must not be asked._

_There in front of her, stood a maniacally smiling tall girl beating down on a helpless boy whose face was covered almost completely in blood.  
She kicked at his chest with her feet, before grabbing him by the neck with one hand, and punching him in the face with her other.  
She had long red hair further accented by two expensive crimson hairclips and a very fancy yellow dress which gave Asuka an almost completely unobstructed view of her cleavage along with red sandals._

_A few more punches later, she squeezed the last of the life from the boy in the white shirt and blue pants that she had in her grip before dropping him to the ground like a hot potato._

_"Stupid Shinji." The girl nonchalantly remarked in a distinctly German accent "To think anyone in the world would ever give a damn about you."_

_"Idiot" She turned away from the boy's lifeless corpse, not realizing the horrific effect that her insulting words were having on the nearby helplessly watching Asuka who was by now reduced to almost a puddle with how she was cowering with her trembling arms over her mouth._

Asuka's kicking intensified to the extent where she kicked her duvet from her body and began to shake as her body began to feel the effects of cold.

_"A, Asuka. Wh, why?" she heard a faint call from behind her as she turned around to find in great shock, a badly knackered Rei splayed on the floor, her face also covered in blood and her hands still clutching her shallowly heaving chest, her short blue bob hair a mess. She coughed up a puddle of blood before she was silent once more, a drop of the red liquid of life splattering onto Asuka's shoes causing her to recoil back in great desperation, crying in alarm._

_"W, what did we do to you Asuka. Y, you monster." Choked another voice and Asuka turned her head ever so slightly to behold the deformed form of Mari, her glasses with their lens broke and multiple stab wounds on her body as she lay in a puddle of her own blood, a big knife protruding from one of her wounds._

_"N, no. I, I didn't do it." Asuka tried to protest as the red haired girl in the yellow dress finally acknowledged her with an incredibly creepy leer, her teeth bared in a truly monstrous fashion._

_"You did this." The girl sneered as she took step after step forward while the now hysterical Asuka took step after step back, still shivering.  
"all of this is your fault."_

_"What have you done to my friends?" Asuka managed to ask in spite of her fear. "You killed my friends." As she continued to back away only to find that she could go no further when her back touched a fence and a quick glance backwards showed that she was at the edge of a very tall fall. Behind her, separated by no more than a few steps was a huge, dark chasm._

_A chasm which seemed to go down forever with no light at the bottom._

Asuka's primal terror in her dream had made her roll onto the very edge of her bed. She was mere inches from falling, as she continued to kick around and flail her arms, the sleeping pill keeping her asleep but not quelling her nightmare.

"_Friends?" the other her in her dream snorted amusedly. "You certainly didn't treat them like friends."_

_"Please. Give me back my friends." Asuka grovelled pathetically, as the other her with the long hair and yellow dress from the day she arrived in Tokyo continued to edge closer, smiling like a madman. "I just want to see my friends again."_

_It was less than a millisecond later when she regretted every word._

_"Oh, you'll be seeing them soon enough, don't you worry." Other Asuka agreed as without warning, she pounced forward and picked the short haired Asuka in her red pyjamas up by her neck with just one hand and dangled her over the edge of the steep, steep fall that was at least several floors high._

Asuka was panting heavily as sweat coated every part of her body, and she edged even closer to the edge of her bed. The sleeping pills were hardly able to keep their hold on her slumber any longer and her eyes were beginning to flicker open by a tiny fraction as her face contorted into a mask of shock and fright.

_The last thing Asuka heard as she was quickly flung down the fall, was the sound of crazed laughter as the old Asuka relished in her misery and expense.  
"Nooooo!" she managed to cry as she fell further into the all consuming blackness of loneliness and despair._

The next thing she knew, she had crashed onto the floor of the bedroom she was sharing with Rei. Fortunately, her bed was not too high and a conveniently placed rug on the floor made her fall more or less painless.

She took a few moments to pant in nervous anticipation as she squirmed uncomfortably from the sweat sealed in her now completely soggy pyjamas.  
"No Shinji." She begged even as a very concerned Rei quickly jumped out of bed to check on her after flicking on a lamp, following the loud thud her fall had caused. "I didn't mean to. Please, forgive me."

"What's wrong, Asuka?" Rei asked with friendly concern, towering above her as she continued to pant nervously for a few more seconds to steady herself.  
"Did you have a bad dream?"

It took a few seconds of looking into Rei's completely focused eyes and a few moments of soul searching for Asuka to finally formulate a reply. She still wasn't so used to telling others her insecurities quite yet.

"Oh, Rei. I just had a terrible nightmare. I dreamt you were dead."

"Well that's alright then, because I'm fine. I appreciate your concern for me, but as you can see, I'm safe and here with you." Rei smiled gratefully.

"But that's not all." Asuka put her hand to her head to steady herself. "In my dream, I was all alone. I dreamed that I had lost all of you and that it was just me by myself again. It was horrible."

"That would never happen Asuka. We would never just leave you like that. You're our friend now." Rei put a hand onto Asuka's shoulder, to find to her surprise that Asuka accepted the gesture with no resistance. This really wasn't the same Asuka who would go around beating up innocent bystanders for no good reason.

"But the worst part of it all." Asuka had to steel herself to avoid making a complete fool of herself through another sappy tantrum. She had had enough of those for a while. "Is that it was all because of me. It was because I beat you all down until you were all dead."

Asuka closed her eyes briefly in tragic denial.

"Rei. Do you think that I could still do that? That I could still hurt Shinji and the rest of you?"

To her great surprise, Rei nearly let out a laugh but didn't out of respect.  
"Of course not Asuka. Like we said earlier. We believe you when you promised to change and if this is how you honestly feel, then for me all it does is further prove that you really are different now."

"What do you mean?"

"You wouldn't be having this nightmare if you didn't truly feel at least some guilt over your past mistakes."

Asuka looked at Rei for a few seconds as Rei looked at Asuka for a few seconds.  
The two of them were demonstrating through respectful silent eye contact, their newfound mutual respect for one another.

"I suppose" Asuka sheepishly admitted after a little while.

A few more seconds of silent eye contact.

"Asuka, you want to know something?"

"What is it, Rei?"

"You're not the only one with nightmares of your past mistakes?"

"I'm not?"

"I had one too. In my nightmare, Ritsuko's mum jumped off a balcony before Ritsuko pushed me off as well, saying it was my fault that she was an orphan with no love from anyone."

"But that was ages ago, Rei. And surely, you couldn't have had anything to do with the previous Doctor's death, could you? I mean, look at you, you're such a polite and mellow little cinnamon roll and that doctor was a very sick woman."

"It was completely my fault." Rei quickly interjected, looking deathly ashamed as she spoke. "I called her an old hag just because I was in a bad mood that day and I heard Gendo say it, and that pushed her off the edge. And I didn't just say it once, I said it multiple times even when I saw how it hurt her the first time. I did it purely to spite her, because I liked being the one in control for once."

Rei raised a fist and very nearly hit herself as she closed her eyes in deep regret for a few seconds.

"I try not to remember these things now. But perhaps I should be grateful that I still do. At least now I know how much something as minor as an insult can really hurt someone in the lowest point of their life, and I watch myself more carefully when I speak. Then again, I didn't really have a choice since after that, Ritsuko's mother killed me and when NERV put me into this body, they made it so that I would be less of a talker and more of an observer."

"What?"

"I used to be as talkative as you and Mari in my original body. It wasn't until I started being rude and unpleasant to everyone with my thoughtlessness that they started to try and make me quieter and more passive." Rei looked sullen.

"Well I for one like it more when you talk, and I would really like it if you keep saying more." Asuka politely requested. She had at first found conversing with the blue haired artificial human distasteful, but that was only because they weren't on the best of terms back then at the apartment. But now that she thought about it, she liked the way that Rei was a very good listener who never butted in nor took the words out of context in a conversation. It made talking with her a smooth and pleasurable affair, and an easy conversation partner for an antisocial narcissist such as herself.

"Then that's what I'll do, as long as it's alright with you." Rei said with a slight bow.

"And Rei?"

"Yes."

"I know this is going to sound odd coming from me, but…" Asuka chose every word carefully as she said them, making her next sentence extremely slow and cautious. "But, do you think that I should just leave since Shinji no longer needs me."

"Why would you think that Asuka?" Rei appeared almost frightened at this sudden suggestion.

"I mean, he has Mari now. And she's probably going to be a better lover for him than I ever could. And even if that doesn't work out, he still has you. And don't take this in an offensive way, please, but you've always managed to get through to Shinji in a way I never could. He feels at ease around you while he always gets scared around me. And you've always been much nicer to him in these years than me.  
What does he even need me for? He has the two of you."

Rei seemed to take these complaints remarkably calmly. Her opinion of Asuka seemed not to drop one bit as she replied in a completely respectful tone that indicated no hostility.

"Asuka. When you saw Shinji in bed with Mari as you passed them by and came to this room, what did you do?"

"Huh?"

"You could have rushed in guns blazing, demanding that Mari unhand Shinji this instant and give him back to you, but you didn't. You could have thrown a hissy fit and kicked the walls down, but you didn't. Why?"

"Well because…" Asuka thought for a while as Rei patiently awaited her answer. "Because, Shinji seemed really happy in her arms. And since Shinji was really happy for a change, I thought, what kind of cruel, heartless jerk would I be if I took that away from him?"

She took a breath as she struggled to keep her head held up through the shame she still felt for herself despite Rei's soothing reassurances.

"Shinji has a right to pick who he wants. And I want him to pick someone who will make him the best that he can be. Even if that someone isn't me."

She looked up from the floor to see Rei beaming proudly at her, almost like she had just won a fight against an Angel.

"And that's what really shows me that you've changed, Asuka. You really are Shinji's friend now."

"I don't understand. Shinji didn't pick me. He picked Mari."

"But by letting Shinji decide for himself, and not forcing him to make a decision against his will and supporting his choice, you've proven that you respect his free will and that really is a kind thing to do. Believe me when I say, I've seen too many love triangles in my lifetime. None of them ended well. But thankfully Asuka, you are not one of them. And that's a wonderful thing."

"Rei" Asuka asked as the last bad memories of the nightmare begun to fade away and her sleepiness began to return. "Can I ask you just one more thing before we go back to sleep?"

"Sure Asuka." Rei stifled a little yawn of her own. "Fire away."

"Are you upset that Shinji didn't pick you? I mean, you went through an entire makeover just to try and get him to notice you and all, so, are you?"

Asuka fidgeted a little, worrying if she had been a little too brusque with this line of questioning. But to her great relief, Rei's demeanour stayed upbeat and she seemed more pleased than impatient to be asked this question.

"Asuka. Just because Shinji's found a girlfriend, doesn't mean he doesn't need the two of us. He wouldn't have come back to fetch us if he wasn't serious about that."  
Rei explained, in soothing tones which seemed to quell stress with every syllable.

"Huh?" Asuka was very confused. So many of the subtle cues in each and every brief conversation she had had with the chief of NERV's little miss perfect seemed to imply that there was nothing she wouldn't do to get at Shinji. Even if they were all friends now, it seemed a little too nonchalant that Rei would just let Shinji be taken by Mari with no resentment or envy whatsoever.

"To put things into context better for you Asuka, let me ask this of you. Have you ever watched sword art online? I mean, the good episodes, before it got bad."

"Well yes. I vaguely remember it. Wasn't the main character really in love with that woman, wait what's her name. Wait I remember. Asuna. Wasn't his entire goal in that show to keep Asuna safe for when they eventually got out of that virtual world together?"

Asuka remembered the name of that one character from how they both had very similar names and how Asuna's great fighting skills were a joy to watch.

"But was Asuna,his only friend?" Rei asked, eyebrow raised with a satisfied smirk.

"Well no. Of course not. He had a lot of other friends as well. Wasn't he like, really close with his sister at one point."

"And that's the point I'm trying to make." Rei clarified. "Asuna was his romantic interest, but she certainly wasn't his only friend or his only teammate. And he certainly couldn't have got through what he did without the help of his other friends as well."

Asuka began to regain her usual fire as Rei continued her explanation. She had not lost her purpose in Shinji's life after all. On the contrary, her role in his long journey was only just beginning. She had become more important to him than ever.

"And to further put things into perspective for you, Asuka. The main character, Kirito, couldn't have saved Asuka without the help of his adorably awesome little sister who also loved him very much.  
If it were just Kirito and Asuna, they'd have both been killed a long time ago. They needed their other teammates and friends as much as they needed each other."

Rei smiled coyly.

"Do you know why I chose to grow out my hair longer?"

"No Rei, why?"

"Because Shinji often cut short a lot of his sessions with me to go and spend more time with you, Asuka. Because that one time I saw you in the school playground, all the boys were going nuts over you and how pretty you looked with your long and beautiful hair. Including Shinji."

"Um. I see." Asuka was trying very hard to keep a straight face but this entire ordeal was getting almost too funny not to laugh over.

"Do you know why I cut my hair shorter, Rei?"

"Go on, tell me."

"Shinji often cut short a lot of the time he had with me because he said he was worried about you and needed to check up on you. And the one time I saw you in NERV at a dinner party, everyone was looking at you so much they were not eating their food or talking to each other. And Shinji had his eye on you the whole way through so hard, he dropped his food and spilled his drink."

And after that, the two girls had a good long hearty laugh.  
They rolled around on the rug, giggling, guffawing, snickering and simpering, unable to hold it in any longer. And what made the laughing session all the more enjoyable was that this time, they were laughing with each other and not at anyone's expense.  
This laugh, was a well earned one, unlike the empty and hollow laughs they had had before which held no meaning and only served as cheap imitations which failed to fool even themselves that they were not horribly depressed.

"Ah well that's funny." Rei eventually concluded after several minutes of rolling on the floor in constant laughter. "I'm going to go back to sleep now, Asuka, if you're fine now."

"You do that, Rei. And thank you."

"But Asuka. Make sure you come to me again if you're having problems. You don't have to suffer in silence. We're friends now." Rei asked as she turned off the lamp, jumped back into bed and pulled her duvet over her head.

"I will Rei. I will" Asuka promised as she headed back to her own bed. "Don't ever go back to being the silent way you used to be. You're adorable when you talk more."

…

The other members of the residence, sans the still sickly sleeping Sakura would head downstairs the next morning to find a delightful smelling black forest gateau cut into equal pieces for each of them, prepared by a proudly grinning Asuka with an apron and oven mitts.

She would explain that since Sakura was still not particularly recovered from her cold, she would be taking over for the chores in the house for a while.  
"It's about time someone else did the work in this house." As she would put it.

She should have been doing this years ago, but better late than never.

Being a native German, her version of her country's national dessert put Sakura's improvised version to great shame with its full authenticity.  
It was the perfect start to the perfect day.

"You're wrong, dad. You're wrong" Asuka said to herself under her breath as she passed the plates around the table. "People can change if they just try. These people may not be perfect, but they're the only friends I've got. And from now on, they are under my protection."

Shinji's smile as he received his portion of the extremely well-made breakfast, she had woken up two hours early to prepare to an exact science, made the ache in her eyes in her muscles from waking up so early to work so hard, completely worth it.

She smiled back at him with a wink as the table fell silent for her to do the honours of blessing the meal,  
The one reward she could ask for as recompense for all the effort she had gone through to obsessively tweak every little detail of her handmade dish to nothing less than absolute perfection only so it could be chomped away in a few tiny bites, was that she could be allowed to do this every morning, and on that note every day.

…

Gendo sat anxiously twiddling his thumbs in a top floor suite of a seven star hotel in central park, reserved specifically for him.  
He had ordered the local branch of NERV in America as well as the local police to immediately lock down the entire country in search of a silly little whiny brown-haired runt and a mentally challenged, disabled blue-haired little girl who had quite lost her way.

"I want every building in every city checked for any sign of either of them." He had demanded.  
"I'll offer one trillion dollars to anyone who can find either of them, and bring them to me."

He took out a little photo he had of his useless little runt of a son.

"So you think your old man's gone crazy, haven't you?" he sneered. "You think your old man's gone soft. Well Shinji, when I get to you, we really are going to reassess how the overly nice and lenient way I've been treating you over these years, is going to have to come to an end."

He cracked his knuckles as his gaze fell across a long and shiny belt he had on a chair next to his bed.

"I regret to have to do this. But it looks like I really am going to have to remind you of the meaning of the word "discipline." Hah. In these namby-pamby modern times, most kids can't even spell discipline."

He picked up the belt and begun to play with it, occasionally whipping it hard through the air causing a whoosh sound.

"Well maybe when I'm done teaching my disobedient little son and daughter, discipline, I'll make it a global national course that everyone will have to take. That'll show them."

He sighed in blissful wistfulness as he lashed the belt across a wall hard enough to leave behind a small but sharp mark of damage, causing a piece of slightly old timber to fall from the wall leaving a small hole.

"Discipline is such a beautiful word."

_Special thanks once again for reading. Please comment and fav if you want to support me and see more content from me. I work very hard to write this.  
Since Asuka was the meanest person in the show, she'll have to work the hardest to redeem herself._


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